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Bringing  up  the  Boy 


"GIVE     HIM    THE    LIGHT 

TELL    HIM    THE    TRUTH 

SHOW    HIM    THE    WAY  ! 


c  c        e 


Bringing  up  the  Boy 


A  Message  to  Fathers  and  Mothers 

from  a  Boy  of  Yesterday  concerning 

the  Men  of  To-morrow 


By 

CARL  WERNER 


New  York 

Dodd,  Mead  and  Company 

1913 


^% 


Copyright,  191 1,  by 

THE  BUTTERICK  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 

Copyright,  1913,  by 

DODD,  MEAD  AND  COMPANY 

Published.  March.  1913 


•  '•-     •  * 


Te 
0laxp  Mortii  Wittntt 

A    GOOD    MOTHER 

WHOSE    FINE    SYMPATHY,    KEEN    PERCEPTION, 

AND  DEVOUT  SENSE  OF  DUTY    ARE  MOULDING 

THE   CHARACTER  OF 

AN    AMERICAN    BOY 

THIS  VOLUME  IS  AFFECTIONATELY  INSCRIBED 


260002 


CONTENTS 


Foreword 

I  From  Baby  to   Boy 
II  The  Simplicity  of  Discipline 

III  As  the  Twig  Is  Bent    . 

IV  A  Talk  at  Christmas  Time 

V  The    Dynasty    of    the    Dime 
Novel 

VI  The  Sin  of  Sex  Secrecy 

VII  The  Weed  and  the  Winecup 

VIII  Out  into  the  World    . 


XI 

3 

17 
33 
48 

63 

77 

91 

104 


There ;  my  blessing  with  thee ! 
And  these  few  precepts  in  thy  memory 
See  thou  character.     Give  thy  thoughts  no  tongue, 
Nor  any  unproportioned  thought  his  act. 
Be  thou  familiar,  but  by  no  means  vulgar. 
Those  friends  thou  hast,  and  their  adoption  tried. 
Grapple  them  to  thy  soul  with  hoops  of  steel; 
But  do  not  dull  thy  palm  with  entertainment 
Of  each  new-hatch'd,  unfledged  comrade.    Beware 
Of  entrance  to  a  quarrel,  but  being  in, 
Bear't  that  the  opposed  may  beware  of  thee. 
Give  every  man  thy  ear,  but  few  thy  voice ; 
Take  each  man's  censure,  but  reserve  thy  judg- 
ment. 
Costly  thy  habit  as  thy  purse  can  buy, 
But  not  express'd  in  fancy;  rich,  not  gaudy; 
For  the  apparel  oft  proclaims  the  man. 
Neither  a  borrower  nor  a  lender  be ; 
For  loan  oft  loses  both  itself  and  friend, 
And  borrowing  dulls  the  edge  of  husbandry. 
This  above  all:  To  thine  own  self  be  true, 
And  it  must  follow,  as  the  night  the  day, 
Thou  canst  not  then  be  false  to  any  man. 
— Polonius  to  his  son. 

Hamlet,  Act  I,  Scene  3. 


FOREWORD 

A  GOOD  portion  of  the  material  in  this 
volume  was  printed  in  serial  form  in  The 
Delineator^  to  whose  editors  and  publish- 
ers I  am  deeply  indebted  for  the  sympathy 
and  encouragement  that  were  necessary  to 
bring  my  ideas  on  boy  training  into  the 
circle  of  general  parenthood.  As  a  result 
of  the  publicity  gained  through  the  medium 
of  that  magazine's  wide  circulation,  many 
letters  were  received  by  the  magazine  and 
by  myself;  and  in  this  mass  of  correspond- 
ence there  was  a  distinct  note  of  appeal 
for  the  publication  of  the  essays  between 
covers.  It  was  quite  without  any  knowl- 
edge of  this  demand,  however,  that  the 
present  publishers,  acting  independently, 
became  interested  in  the  series,  and  de- 
cided, after  due  consideration,  to  issue  it 
in  book  form. 

zi 


xii  Foreword 

It  was  surprising  that  of  the  many  let- 
ters  received  while  these  articles  were  ap- 
pearing serially,  only  a  small  minority  of 
the  writers  disagreed  with  my  views,  and 
those  few  protests  were  confined  to  one 
or  two  subjects.  So  far  as  could  be  rea- 
sonably expected  of  one  whose  time  is 
much  occupied  in  pursuing  a  livelihood,  I 
replied  to  all  such  communications.  If  in 
some  instances  I  failed,  the  omission  was 
not  because  I  was  lacking  in  a  keen  appre- 
ciation of  the  Interest,  the  sympathy,  the 
suggestions  and  the  criticisms  thus  ex- 
pressed. As  to  those  who  disagreed  with 
me,  I  would  like  to  repeat  here  what  I 
have  said  to  them  in  personal  replies: 
They  may  be  right,  and  I  wrong.  This 
much  only,  I  know — ihat  Providence  is 
kind  in  that  He  permits  me  to  retain  a  dis- 
tinct picture  of  me  boy's  cosmos;  that  as 
a  man  and  a  fatner  1  can  still  see — and 
feel — from  the  boy's  viewpomt;  and  that, 


Foreword  xiii 

preserving  that  visuallty,  I  have  tried, 
with  the  best  judgment  and  most  constant 
effort  of  which  I  am  capable,  to  employ 
it  for  the  greatest  good.  Everything  that 
I  have  written  about  boy  training  is 
solidly  fixed  on  this  foundation;  and  every- 
thing that  I  have  written  has  been  or  is 
being  employed,  to  the  very  letter,  in  my 
stewardship  of  one  who  is  infinitely  more 
precious  to  me  than  life  itself — my  own 
boy.  If  I  have  erred,  may  God  forgive 
me;  but  on  this  score  my  conscience  is  as 
clear  as  a  crystal  pool,  for  so  far  as  human 
vision  penetrates  not  one  duty  has  been 
left  undone  and  not  one  endeavour  has 
gone  astray.  And  happily,  though  I  say 
it  with  a  prayer  on  my  lips  and  humility 
in  my  heart,  every  passing  year  adds  its 
living  testimony  to  the  principles  which  I 
advocate  and  for  which  I  plead. 

c.  w. 


Bringing  up  the  Boy 


>    1   >  ,  >  »    » • 


FROM  BABY  TO   BOY 

Your  son,  madam,  while  passing  a  vacant 
house,  paused,  poised  his  arm  and  deliber- 
ately sent  a  small  stone  crashing  through 
one  of  the  windows.  Then,  turning  on  his 
heel,  he  ran  nimbly  up  the  street  and  dis- 
appeared around  the  corner. 

You  know  It  occurred,  because  some 
one  living  next  to  the  house  saw  him  do 
It  and  told  the  owner,  and  the  owner  came 
to  you  for  reparation  and  you  charged  the 
boy  with  it  and  he  admitted  It  to  be  true. 

You  are  heartbroken  because  you  find 
vourself  confronted  with  what  appears  to 
be  Irrefutable  evidence  that  your  son  is  a 
bad  boy. 

You  ask  him  why  he  did  it.  He  doesn't 
know.  You  suggest  that  it  might  have 
3 


4  Bringing  up  the  Boy 

been  an  accident.  Being  a  truthful  boy,  he 
replies  tearfully  that  it  was  not.  You  en- 
quire if  he  had  any  grievance  against  the 
man  who  owns  the  house.  He  answers 
that  he  hadn't  even  heard  of  the  owner 
and  didn't  know  who  he  was.  Then — you 
ask  again — why  did  he  do  it?  You  get  the 
same  answer: 

"I  don't  know." 

It  certainly  looks  dubious  for  your  boy, 
madam,  doesn't  it?  If  at  the  tender  age  of 
ten  years  a  lad  will  deliberately  "  chuck  "  a 
stone  through  a  neighbouring  window,  with 
no  reason  or  provocation  for  it  whatso- 
ever, what  may  he  not  be  capable  of 
at  twenty?  The  thought  is  appalling, 
isn't  it? 

Happily,  however,  I  think  it  can  be 
demonstrated  to  your  complete  satisfaction 
that  your  son  is  not  bad — so  far  as  this 
particular  offence  is  concerned,  anyway — 
and  that  this  stone-throwing  business  is  a 


From  Baby  to  Boy  5 

perfectly  natural  thing  for  a  perfectly  nor- 
mal boy  to  do. 

To  start  with,  let  us  suppose  that  I  have 
placed  on  your  back  fence,  side  by  side, 
a  brick  and  a  bottle.  I  then  hand  you  a 
little  target-rifle  and  invite  you  to  try  your 
skill  at  shooting.  Now,  which  will  you 
aim  at — the  brick  or  the  bottle? 

The  bottle,  of  course.  You  answer 
more  quickly  than  I  can  write  it. 

And  why  the  bottle? 

Just  think  that  over  a  moment,  please. 
Why  the  bottle? 

Meanwhile,  let  us  go  back  to  the  boy 
and  the  window. 

The  desire  to  see  a  physical  result  from 
any  personal  effort  is  deep-seated  in  every 
human  being.  Where  is  the  author  who 
does  not  take  secret  and  real  pleasure  in 
scanning  the  achievements  of  his  pen  in 
the  public  print?  Where  is  the  architect 
who  would  forego  the  pleasure  of  seeing 


6  Bringing  up  the  Boy 

the  finished  structure,  the  lines  and  masses 
of  which  he  has  dreamed  over  and  de- 
signed? The  desire  to  see  the  result  fol- 
low the  endeavour,  the  effect  follow  the 
cause,  is  strong  within  us  all. 

It  may  seem  a  far  cry  from  art  and  let- 
ters to  the  boy  and  the  broken  window, 
but  the  psychologic  principle  involved  is 
one  and  the  same.  The  boy,  sauntering 
along  the  street  or  the  roadway,  has  been 
amusing  himself  by  throwing  stones.  He 
has  sent  one  against  the  side  of  a  barn 
with  no  effect  other  than  the  sound  of  a 
hollow  thud  as  it  struck  the  boards.  He 
has  heaved  one  at  a  telegraph  pole,  and 
the  pole  didn't  even  quiver.  Then  he 
spies  the  vacant  house. 

It  is  obviously  deserted  and  abandoned. 
A  pane  already  shattered  in  one  of  the 
windows  starts  the  idea.  It  is  far  enough 
back  from  the  street  to  make  the  throw 
a  test  of  skill.     If  he  misses  there's  no 


From  Baby  to  Boy  7 

harm  done.  If  he  hits  there'll  be  a  noise, 
a  crash,  a  shower  of  flying  glass  and — 
Enough !  Up  goes  the  arm,  away  goes  the 
stone  with  fateful  accuracy  and  the  deed 
is  done.  It  was  the  act  of  a  sudden  im- 
pulse. Before  the  conscience  within  him 
could  assert  itself  the  missile  had  struck; 
and  that  innate  human  ambition  to  pro- 
duce a  visible  result  was  gratified. 

The  deed  is  done,  and  the  boy  doesn't 
know  why  he  did  it.  But  returning  to 
the  hypothesis  of  the  brick  and  the  bottle, 
perhaps  you,  madam,  can  explain  why  you 
would  prefer  to  shoot  at  the  bottle. 

In  these  talks  I  want  to  tell  mothers 
something  of  what  I  know  about  boys;  not 
all  about  them,  but  just  a  few  of  the  more 
vital  things  that  every  mother  of  a  boy 
ought  to  know  and  every  father  ought 
to  be  reminded  of.  I  say  "  reminded  " 
advisedly,  for  the  fathers  must  have 
known  some  time,  though  it  would  seem 


8  Bringing  up  the  Boy 

that  most  of  them  have  forgotten  now. 
What  I  say  I  know  about  boys,  I  know. 
What  I  may  suggest  or  advise  is  another 
matter.  It  can  stand  only  as  a  belief,  an 
opinion,  and  my  sole  excuse  for  presum- 
ing to  offer  it  is  that  I  love  the  boy; 
I  live  close  to  him  and  I  believe  in 
him. 

I  do  not  believe  that  the  intuitiveness 
generally  accredited  to  motherhood  is  in 
the  least  degree  overestimated  or  exag- 
gerated. But  mere  intuitiveness,  even  in 
its  highest  form  of  development,  can 
hardly  be  expected  to  bridge  the  natural 
gap  of  temperamental  sex  difference  be- 
tween mother  and  son. 

Unfortunately,  the  father,  not  eager 
to  invade  what  he  believes  to  be  the 
mother's  sphere,  usually  is  content  to  leave 
the  management  of  the  boy  in  the  mother's 
hands,  while  the  mother,  not  recognising 
the  deficiency  of  her  position,  labours  on 


From  Baby  to  Boy  9 

patiently,  lovingly,  untiringly,  but  In  many 
cases  blindly,  and  often  with  poor  success. 
If  mothers  only  understood  this  it  would 
be  better.  If  they  could  be  brought  to 
realize  the  handicap  under  which  they  are 
striving  they  could  fortify  themselves 
against  It.  They  could  deepen  the  inter- 
est of  the  father  or,  falling  that,  they 
could  at  the  least  draw  upon  his  experi- 
ence and  knowledge  of  real  boyhood  with 
good  effect.  But  there  are  no  sex  dis- 
tinctions to  the  average  mother.  The 
boys  and  the  girls  are  just  "  the  children  " 
and  the  difference  of  sex  is  lost  in  the 
great  catholicity  of  maternal  love. 

At  the  very  beginning  parents  must  con- 
cede the  existence  of  an  inherent  tempera- 
mental difference  between  the  boy  and  the 
girl.  This,  for  the  mother,  is  not  so  easy 
of  adjustment  as  it  may  appear.  The  boy 
IS  her  baby,  just  her  baby,  from  swaddling- 
clothes  to  long  trousers. 


lo         Bringing  up  the  Boy 

The  fact  is,  of  course,  that  the  asser- 
tion of  the  sex  temperament  starts  almost 
with  the  beginning  of  life.  For  the  first 
four  or  five  years  it  is,  to  be  sure,  almost 
a  negligible  quantity,  but  after  that  the 
boy  needs  to  be  treated  as  a  boy,  and  not 
as  a  sexless  baby. 

Put  a  pair  of  new  red  shoes  on  a  little 
girl's  feet  and  send  her  out  among  a  group 
of  misses  shod  In  black.  Then  watch  her 
plume  herself  and  pose  at  the  front  gate 
and  mince  up  and  down  the  avenue,  as 
proud  as  a  peacock. 

Now,  rig  up  the  six-year-old  boy  In  some 
new  and  untried  kink  of  fashion  and  turn 
him  loose  on  the  highway — and  observe 
what  follows.  Note  how  sheepishly  he 
looks  down  the  street  to  where  his  play- 
fellows are  gathered,  and  see  how  he 
edges  toward  them,  faltering  and  keeping 
as  close  to  the  fence  as  he  can.  Observe 
how,  just  as  he  Is  trying  to  slip  into  their 


From  Baby  to  Boy  n 

midst  unostentatiously,  one  of  them  cries 
in  a  shrill  voice: 

"Look  who's  here!''  and  another  re- 
marks : 

"  Oh,  what  a  shine  I  "  and  still  another 
exclaims : 

"Pipe  the  kellyl '*  meaning,  observe 
the  hat. 

Then  perhaps  there  is  the  very  rude 
boy  who  asks  whether  the  "  rags  "  have 
been  "  rassled,"  said  enquiry  being  gently 
emphasised  by  a  push  from  behind.  In 
which  case  the  young  glass  of  fashion,  hav- 
ing a  gloomy  premonition  of  what  may 
happen  to  him  at  home  If  he  returns 
bearing  the  marks  of  combat,  backs  dis- 
creetly off  the  firing-line,  and  retreats  to 
his  own  dooryard  with  as  small  loss  of 
dignity  as  the  exigency  of  the  occasion 
will  permit.  And  he  is  pretty  sure  to  stick 
there  the  remainder  of  the  afternoon, 
while  occasionally  other  boys,  in  regula- 


12  Bringing  up  the  Boy 

tlon  woollens  or  corduroys,  peep  at  him 
curiously  through  the  palings,  making  him 
feel  like  one  of  those  unpronounceable 
animals  that  they  keep  in  cages  and  lec- 
ture about  at  the  zoo. 

Do  you  think  this  characteristic  of  the 
boy  really  signifies  that  he  is  "  notional ''? 
Do  you  put  it  down  merely  as  "  finical- 
ity "?  Then  you  do  him  a  great  injustice. 
In  the  true  analysis  it  is  quite  the  oppo- 
site. It  is  but  one  feature  of  a  unique 
democracy,  a  splendid  democracy  that  you 
will  find  holding  sway  wherever  boys 
gather.  Oh,  this  democracy  of  boyhood 
is  a  wonderful  thing!  To  me  it  is  the 
regime  beautiful.  There  is  something  so 
inspiring  about  it!  For  here,  in  this 
quaint  domain  of  dare-and-do,  you  see 
every  sturdy  little  chap,  regardless  of 
clothes,  creed  or  family  position,  stand- 
ing on  his  own  merits  and  judged  by  his 
own  deeds. 


From  Baby  to  Boy  13 

Why  some  mothers  persist  In  Llttle- 
Lord-Fauntleroy-ing  their  boys  within  an 
inch  of  their  lives  Is  to  me  a  profound 
mystery.  Can  any  mother  enlighten  me 
on  the  long-curls  cruelty?  Is  It  selfish 
vanity?  Could  any  mother,  for  the  mere 
gratification  of  an  egoistic  desire,  be  so 
unfeeling  as  to  send  her  helpless  boy  out 
into  the  scene  of  humiliation  and  actual 
physical  torture  of  which  the  boy  with  the 
long  curls  becomes  the  pitiable  centre  as 
soon  as  he  turns  the  corner? 

I  do  not  like  to  think  so.  Rather  would 
I  believe,  as  in  the  case  of  the  broken  win- 
dow, that  the  mother's  error  Is  charge- 
able to  her  never  having  been  a  boy.  She 
has  a  faulty  conception  of  what  It  means 
to  be  yanked  about  by  those  boy-hated 
ringlets  of  gold,  to  be  harassed  and 
taunted  by  the  Inornate  but  happier  hoi 
polloi. 

I  recall  one  afternoon  when  I  took  a 


14          Bringing  up  the  Boy 

youngster  of  three  around  to  the  barber's 
to  have  him  shorn.  I  returned  with  the 
boy  in  one  hand  and  the  curls  in  the  other. 
He  was  magnificently  cologned  and 
wanted  everybody  to  "  smell  it." 

The  mother  was  waiting  with  an  empty 
shoe-box  in  her  lap.  She  was  sitting  by 
the  window,  in  the  soft  half-light  of  the 
early  evening,  and  she  caressed  the  golden 
bronze  ringlets  before  putting  them  away. 
And  something  glistened  in  her  eye  and  it 
fell  Into  the  box  and  was  packed  away 
with  the  curls.  I  shouldn't  wonder  if  it 
were  there  yet,  for  somehow  I  can't  help 
thinking  that  a  tear  like  that  must  crys- 
tallise into  a  tiny  pearl  and  glisten  on  for- 
ever. 

But  when  this  mother  looked  up  at  the 
boy,  she  was  smiling,  almost  proudly;  and 
she  patted  the  shiny,  round  head,  and 
kissed  it,  cologne  and  all,  and  quoted  a 
verse    about    having    "  lost   a    baby    and 


From  Baby  to  Boy  15 

gained  a  man,"  declaring  that  he  really 
looked  much  better  than  she  had  expected. 

And  the  boy  was  put  to  bed  and  slept 
coolly  and  comfortably,  and  he's  had  a 
clean  scalp  and  a  clear  conscience  ever 
since,  I  guess. 

But  here  I  am,  taking  up  the  reader's 
precious  time  talking  about  clothes  and 
curls — neither  of  which  mere  man  is  sup- 
posed to  know  anything  about — when  all 
I  meant  to  do  was  to  emphasise  the  fact 
that  long  before  a  half-dozen  of  his  birth- 
days have  been  celebrated,  the  boy  must 
be  taken  up  as  an  abstract  proposition. 

At  the  age  of  five,  then,  let  us  say,  the 
boy  reaches  the  stage  of  recognisable  and 
indisputable  masculinity.  This  is  the 
logical  time  for  the  properly  constituted 
father  to  take  the  helm  of  the  son's  des- 
tiny. If  he  does  not  do  so,  through 
lack  of  interest,  lack  of  time  or  lack 
of  the   faculty   for  it,   the  mother  must 


i6         Bringing  up  the  Boy 

needs  go  on  with  the  struggle.  Her  five 
years  of  training  the  baby  will  not  come 
amiss  in  training  the  boy.  But  she  must 
now  reckon  with  boyhood  as  a  distinct 
classification  of  childhood.  She  must  re- 
member that  from  now  on,  every  year, 
every  month,  every  day,  widens  the  gap  of 
sex  divergence.  She  will  do  well  to  look 
at  the  bearded  men  who  pass  her  door  and 
consider  that  every  attribute  of  masculinity 
exists,  embryonically,  in  her  round-faced 
baby  boy. 

From  now  on,  if  she  hopes  to  appeal 
to  the  best  that  is  in  him,  she  must  not 
only  study  the  boy,  but  she  must  study 
the  world  from  the  boy^s  viewpoint.  The 
nearer  the  mother  can  get  to  the  boy's 
inner  emotions,  the  more  effectively  can 
she  direct  the  trend  of  his  mental,  moral 
and  physical  development.  Herein  lies 
the  secret  of  getting  and  keeping  a  grip 
on  the  boy. 


II 

THE  SIMPLICITY  OF  DISCIPLINE 

We  are  living  in  an  epoch  of  extremists. 
This  morning  the  suffering  dyspeptic  is 
told  that  he  will  find  a  complete  cure  in 
a  two  weeks'  fast;  this  afternoon  he  is 
advised  that  by  eating  every  two  hours 
he  will  be  forever  free  from  his  ills.  On 
the  one  hand  is  a  sect  preaching  that 
prayer  will  bring  us  peace,  power  and 
plenty,  and  on  the  other  is  a  schism  plead- 
ing that  supplication,  in  itself,  availeth 
nothing.  Here  we  have  a  group  of  mod- 
ern disciplinists  teaching  that  corporal 
punishment  is  a  fading  relic  of  bar- 
baric brutality;  there  we  find  a  sturdy 
school  of  old-timers  telling  us  that  if 
we  spare  the  rod  we  shall  spoil  the 
child. 

17 


1 8  Bringing  up  the  Boy 

With  these  extremists  who  specialise  In 
the  stomach  or  In  the  soul  I  have  no  quar- 
rel; but  coming  down  to  the  subject  of 
disciplining  the  boy  I  do  want  to  point  out 
to  fathers  and  mothers  seriously  and  ear- 
nestly that  there  is  a  happy  medium,  a 
middle  course — a  neutral  and  natural 
way. 

The  moral  suasion  idea  is  a  fine  thing 
in  theory  and  it  would  be  a  moderately 
fine  thing  actually  if  parents  were  all 
moral  suaslonlsts,  and  if  parents  and  chil- 
dren had  nothing  else  in  the  world  to  do 
but  practise  it.  By  this  I  mean  that  if 
all  or  most  parents  were  naturally 
equipped  to  rule  by  moral  suasion,  and, 
secondly,  if  twenty-four  hours  of  the  day 
could  be  devoted  exclusively  to  discipline, 
it  would  be  undoubtedly  a  commendable 
method  of  child-government.  Unfortu- 
nately, such  Is  not  the  case,  and  In  dealing 
with  the  question  collectively  we  have  to 


The  Simplicity  of  Discipline     19 

take  conditions,  parents  and  children  as 
we  find  them. 

Nearly  every  parent  possesses  the 
faculty  of  governing  to  some  extent — 
greater  or  less;  and  all  children  are  ca- 
pable of  responding  to  it— but  in  varying 
degrees.  There  is,  therefore,  no  hard 
and  fast  rule  that  can  be  laid  down  for 
the  guidance  of  all  parents,  to  be  applied 
successfully  to  all  children.  However,  by 
reducing  the  subject  of  this  article  first 
to  boys,  and  second  to  the  average  boy, 
I  think  we  can  get  the  discussion  down 
to  a  practicable  basis.  The  little  girl  is 
here  absolutely  eliminated  from  considera- 
tion. I  have  studied  her  assiduously  and 
at  close  range  for  a  number  of  years  and 
have  succeeded  in  establishing  this  much 
only;  first,  that  she  is  almost  too  sweetly 
complex  for  paternal  comprehension,  and 
second,  that  she  is  not  amenable  to  the 
rules  by  which  we  discipline  the  boy. 


20  Bringing  up  the  Boy 

My  boy,  then,  is  the  average  boy,  old 
enough  to  walk  and  talk  and  understand 
what  is  said  to  him,  moderately  sensitive, 
moderately  affectionate,  moderately  im- 
pulsive, moderately  perverse,  of  ordina- 
rily good  health,  and  possessed  of  the 
usual  amount  of  animal  spirits. 

Obedience  is  the  foundation  stone  of 
the  entire  structure  of  discipline.  There 
is  a  good  deal  in  discipline  besides  obedi- 
ence, but  without  obedience  there  is  no 
discipline.  It  is  not  the  alpha  and  omega, 
but  is  a  good  deal  more  than  the  alpha. 
Discipline  is  harmony.  Harmony  cannot 
be  maintained  without  perfect  obedience, 
because  obedience  is  a  joint  affair,  a  part- 
nership arrangement  between  you  and  the 
boy.  All  other  essentials  of  discipline  are 
ex  parte.  In  all  other  essentials  you  are 
subjective  and  the  boy  is  objective.  You 
think  and  he  acts,  you  direct  and  he  exe- 
cutes, you  furnish  the  plan  of  living  and 


The  Simplicity  of  Discipline     21 

he  lives  it.  But  it  is  the  partnership  in 
obedience  that  makes  this  possible.  Given 
perfect  obedience,  the  rest  is  easy,  because 
the  boy's  daily  routine  is  simply  a  vivifica- 
tion  of  the  principles  shaped  by  your  own 
matured  mind. 

Let  me  repeat,  then,  that  discipline  is 
simply  harmony  and  harmony  cannot  be 
attained  without  perfect  obedience.  Note 
the  adjective,  perfect,  for  this  is  the  ob- 
stacle over  which  we  are  so  prone  to 
stumble.  Obedience  must  be  absolute, 
complete  and  infallible. 

How  can  we  attain  it?  How  can  we 
take  the  child-boy  and  so  mould  him  that 
he  will  respond  to  a  command  instantly 
and  unfailingly?  Within  him  there  is  a 
natural,  healthy  instinct  opposed  to  it. 
Within  him  is  the  natural  human  tendency 
to  think  and  act  independently,  to  learn 
by  experiment,  to  venture  unassisted  and 
unrestrained  into  the  unknown. 


22  Bringing  up  the  Boy 

Punishment  other  than  corporal  will 
not  always  do  it,  because  at  the  time  when 
this  condition  must  be  established  the  boy's 
baby  mentality  is  not  capable  of  compass- 
ing the  long  distances  between  cause  and 
effect.  At  the  early  age  at  which  it  is 
necessary  to  establish  perfect  obedience, 
the  moral  penalties  are  too  slow  in  action, 
too  complex  and  too  much  dependent  upon 
local  condition  to  be  effective.  There  are 
exceptions,  of  course.  For  example:  You 
have  a  box  of  sweets  and  you  tell  the  boy 
he  may  take  one.  He  takes  two.  As  a 
penalty  for  his  disobedience  you  make  him 
return  both  pieces  to  the  box  and  you  cast 
the  package  into  the  fire.  There  you  have 
incorporal  punishment  that  is  instant,  di- 
rect and  effective;  but  this  incident  is  made 
to  order  and  of  rare  occurrence  in  fact. 
Suppose  that  the  boy  swallows  the  two 
pieces  instantly,  or  suppose  the  more  usual 
occurrence  that  you  have  forbidden  him 


The  Simplicity  of  Discipline:     23 

to  partake  of  the  sweets  at  all  and  he  has 
surreptitiously  eaten  one.  What  then? 
Casting  the  remainder  Into  the  fire  will 
not  Impress  him  at  the  time  because  his 
appetite  has  been  satisfied,  the  desire  is 
dulled.  You  may  deprive  him  of  his  al- 
lowance on  the  day  following,  but  the  lapse 
of  time  dims  the  relation  of  the  penalty 
to  the  offence.  This  kind  of  treatment 
works  well  with  some  of  the  minor  errors 
but  not  with  disobedience.  The  tendency 
to  disobey  is  too  constant,  too  persistent 
and  too  frequent,  and  too  early  in  the 
boy's  process  of  development. 

A  mother  said:  "It  is  not  necessary 
for  me  to  strike  my  child.  I  compel  him 
to  sit  in  a  chair  for  one  hour  without 
speaking.  He  fears  that  more  than  the 
rod."  Of  course,  he  does,  poor  little 
chap!  And  that  mother  did  not  realise 
that  she  was  substituting  a  barbaric  tor- 
ture for  mild  punishment.     I  reverse  her 


24  Bringing  up  the  Boy 

reasoning:  It  Is  not  necessary  for  me  to  so 
torture  my  boy.  Nor  shall  I  deprive  him 
of  his  play,  of  the  outside  air,  of  his  sup- 
per, of  anything  that  makes  for  his  health 
and  happiness,  nor  of  any  good  thing  that 
it  is  in  my  power  to  give  him. 

Disobedience  calls  for  a  punishment 
that  is  short,  direct  and  impressive.  A 
sharp  tap  on  the  palm  of  a  boy's  hand, 
or  on  the  calf  of  his  leg — or  two  or  five 
or  ten — is  the  only  kind  of  penance  I  know 
of  that  fills  the  requirements.  It  is  the  one 
short  and  sure  road  to  an  immediate  re- 
sult. Naturalists  tell  us  that  the  sense  of 
touch  is  the  first  experienced  by  a  new- 
born child.  It  is  the  first  and  quickest  wire 
from  the  outer  world  to  the  brain.  Then 
come  hearing  and  smelling  and  seeing  and 
long  after  these  come  the  moral  percep- 
tions, the  power  of  deduction  and  the  dis- 
tinction of  right  and  wrong.  My  experi- 
ence has  been  that  this  first  sense  continues 


The  Simplicity  of  Discipline     25 

to  be  the  live  wire  until  well  on  toward 
the  maturity  of  the  child — if  the  child  is 
a  boy.  There  are  many  men.  who  can 
undergo  the  severest  mental  torture  with 
calm  resolution  and  fortitude,  but  who 
tremble  at  the  sight  of  a  dental  chair. 
Not  long  ago  I  was  chatting  with  a  friend, 
who  is  a  dentist,  when  a  burly  policeman 
rushed  in,  plumped  himself  into  the  operat- 
ing-chair and  asked  the  dentist  to  ease  his 
aching  tooth.  The  dentist  looked  at  the 
tooth  and  reached  for  his  forceps.  "  The 
only  way  to  fix  that  is  to  extract  It,"  he 
said.  The  officer  of  the  law  sprang  from 
the  chair  like  a  jack-in-the-box  and  made 
for  the  door,  remarking  apologetically  as 
he  went  out  that  he  couldn't  spare  the 
time.  **  That  man,'*  said  the  dentist,  when 
he  had  gone,  *'  has  a  medal  for  bravery, 
and  three  times  has  been  commended  for 
saving  lives  at  the  risk  of  his  own." 
It  is  not  that  the  boy  fears  pain,  but 


26  Bringing  up  the  Boy 

that  he  fears  the  certainty  of  it,  he  dreads 
the  deliberate,  the  inevitable  punishment, 
accompanied  by  no  moral  stimulus  with 
which  to  combat  it.  I  have  known  my 
boy  to  take  a  severe  beating  from  another 
boy  in  a  struggle  for  the  possession  of 
an  apple — and  all  without  shedding  a  tear. 
The  spat  on  the  hand  that  I  inflicted  was 
a  mere  flea-bite  to  that  beating,  but  be- 
cause of  it  I  could  leave  an  apple  within 
reach  of  his  hand  indefinitely  and,  though 
he  might  want  it  ever  so  much,  he  would 
not  touch  it  if  I  had  forbidden  him. 

So  much  for  the  psychology  of  corporal 
punishment.     Now  for  the  practice  of  it. 

While  I  may  have  been  guilty  of  many 
literary  offences,  a  list  of  "  Don*ts  "  has 
not,  up  to  this  time,  been  among  them. 
But  as  the  word  obedience  necessarily  cap- 
tions an  imposing  array  of  *'  Don'ts  "  for 
the  boy,  I  think  his  parents  may  be  better 
equipped  to  enforce  them  by  considering 


The  Simplicity  of  Discipline     27 

some  very  important  ones  applying  to 
themselves.  At  any  rate,  having  spoken 
freely  in  favour  of  the  use  of  the  rod,  it 
is  vitally  important  to  qualify  my  advocacy 
of  it  in  accordance  with  my  experience 
and  belief.  Every  one  of  the  qualifications 
or  conditions  that  I  am  about  to  enumer- 
ate is  essential  to  this  system  of  discipline, 
so  much  so  that  if  they  were  not  to  be  con- 
sidered as  part  of  it,  all  that  I  have  writ- 
ten would  go  for  naught  and  I  would  ask 
to  withdraw  it  completely. 

Corporal  punishment  is  resorted  to  for 
one  kind  of  offence  only — disobedience. 
Absolutely  for  no  other. 

Corporal  punishment  consists  of  a  few 
sharp  taps  on  the  palm  or  calf  with  a  thin 
wood  ruler. 

The  boy  is  never  punished  in  the  pres- 
ence of  a  third  person,  even  a  brother  or 
sister. 

Punishment  is  never  administered  with 


28  Bringing  up  the  Boy 

the  slightest  sign  of  anger  or  under  ex- 
citement. Any  parent  incapable  of  so  ad- 
ministering  corporal  punishment  should 
not  employ  it. 

Punishment  must  partake  of  the  nature 
of  a  simple  ceremony  rather  than  of  a 
torture;  it  must  be  regarded  as  a  duty, 
not  as  a  personal  retaliation. 

Punishment  is  always  prefaced  with  a 
simple,  brief,  but  explicit  explanation,  like 
this :  "  My  boy,  listen :  I  love  you  and  I 
do  not  like  to  hurt  you.  But,  every  boy 
must  be  made  to  obey  his  father  and 
mother,  and  this  seems  to  be  the  only  way 
to  make  you  do  it.  So  remember !  Every 
time  you  disobey  me  you  shall  be  pun- 
ished. When  I  tell  you  to  do  a  thing,  you 
must  do  it,  instantly;  without  a  moment's 
delay.  If  you  hesitate,  if  you  wait  to  be 
told  a  second  time,  you  will  be  punished. 
When  I  speak,  you  must  act.  Just  as  sure 
as  you  are  standing  here  before  me,  this 


The  Simplicity  of  Discipline     29 

punishment  will  follow  every  time  you  do 
not  do  as  you  are  told." 

Say  no  more  than  that.  Drive  home 
the  Inseparability  of  the  cause  and  the  con- 
sequence ;  let  the  Idea  of  Instant,  Infallible 
obedience  be  telegraphed  to  his  brain 
simultaneously  with  the  sting  of  the  ruler. 

Have  no  fear  that  this  form  of  chastise- 
ment will  break  your  boy's  spirit  or  will 
weaken  the  bond  of  love  between  him  and 
yourself.  Both  will  be  strengthened  by 
it.  For  one  punishment  Inflicted,  there  are 
hundreds  of  kind  words  and  deeds  to 
prove  your  affection. 

No  child  should  be  punished  corporally 
other  than  as  I  have  described. 

To  strike  him  in  the  face,  to  strike  him 
at  all  with  the  hand  or  fist  is  brutal,  and 
brutality  is  not  only  sinful  but  ineffective. 
Corporal  punishment  inflicted  Impulsively 
is  dangerous  because  It  lacks  the  earmarks 
of  good  intent. 


30  Bringing  up  the  Boy 

Above  all,  remember  this:  That  the 
kind  of  corporal  punishment  which  I  em- 
ploy is  effective,  first  because  it  is  the  only 
kind  the  child  knows,  and  in  no  other  way 
does  he  feel  the  weight  of  a  corrective 
hand ;  and  second,  because  it  never  fails  to 
follow  the  deed. 

To  waver  is  unfair  to  the  child.  Yes- 
terday he  was  punished.  To-day  he  com- 
mits the  same  infraction  and  is  not  pun- 
ished. Here  is  inconsistency  and  the  boy 
is  confused.  If  it  were  not  deserved  to- 
day, he  reasons,  it  was  undeserved  yes- 
terday; therefore,  he  is  aggrieved.  Every 
time  you  miss  the  atonement  you  lose  a 
link,  and  the  chain  of  your  discipline  is 
broken. 

This  is  the  chief  error  of  parent  dis- 
ciplinarians. We  fail  to  grasp  the  all- 
important  truth  that  the  unfailing  applica- 
tion of  corporal  punishment  is  the  very 
thing  that  can  render  punishment  of  any 


The  Simplicity  of  Discipline    31 

kind  unnecessary.  Many  a  boy  is  pun- 
ished a  hundred  times  where  but  a  few 
would  have  sufficed  had  the  penalty  been 
exacted  consistently  and  unfailingly.  The 
right  kind  of  discipline  neither  spoils  the 
child  nor  spoils  the  rod.  It  spares  both. 
It  is  like  good  dentistry.  Every  moment 
of  hurt  saves  years  of  suffering  in  later 
life.  And  good  painless  discipline  is  as 
rare  as  good  painless  dentistry. 

Further  than  this  I  have  but  little  to 
say  about  discipline,  for,  once  you  have 
achieved  infallible  obedience,  you  are 
bound  to  achieve  perfect  discipline.  The 
two  words  are  synonyms  in  effect.  No 
mother  can  hope  for  the  best  results  if 
she  seeks  to  train  her  boy  as  she  would 
arrange  her  hair — to  please  her  vanity — 
or  as  she  would  plan  a  shopping  tour — to 
suit  her  convenience.  Self  must  be  sub- 
merged and  the  child's  future  kept  upper- 
most.    For  discipline  is  a  mother's  duty 


32  Bringing  up  the  Boy 

to  her  boy.  If  she  falters  in  it  the  boy 
will  suffer.  And  every  penalty  that  the 
unwatched  boy  escapes  through  a  parent's 
frailty,  he  will  have  to  pay,  many  fold,  in 
the  future  years. 


Ill 

AS  THE  TWIG  IS  BENT 

You  hear  the  sound  of  sobbing  In  the  dis- 
tance, and  as  It  draws  nearer  and  grows 
more  distinct  you  recognise  the  voice.  A 
moment  later  the  door  flies  open  and  there 
stands  your  boy,  crying  as  though  his  heart 
would  break.  Little  rivulets  of  tears  are 
trickling  down  his  dust-covered  cheeks,  and 
on  the  side  of  his  face  is  the  mark  of  a 
cruel  blow. 

Between  sobs  he  tells  you  that  the  boy 
across  the  street  did  It.  Why?  He  does- 
n't know  why ;  he  wasn't  doing  anything  at 
all,  "  jes'  playin'  around." 

You  wipe  the  tears  away  and  kiss  the 
hurt,  and  as  you  note  the  quivering  lip 
and  the  angry  bruise,  a  wave  of  indigna- 
tion   swells    within    you.      Glancing   out 

33 


34  Bringing  up  the  Boy 

through  the  window  you  see  the  boy  across 
the  street,  cavorting  triumphantly  on  the 
curb.  How  much  bigger  and  coarser  and 
rougher  than  your  boy  he  appears — isn^t 
it  always  so?  Your  little  chap  has  come 
to  you  partly  for  sympathy,  but  mainly  for 
retaliation.  He  shows  you  his  wound  and 
points  to  the  boy  who  did  it.  He  has  been 
hurt,  he  has  been  grievously  wronged,  and 
he  has  come  to  you  whom  he  has  learned 
to  look  upon  as  his  one  never-failing  pro- 
tector and  friend.  You  spring  to  your 
feet,  fired  with  an  overwhelming  de- 
sire to  rush  into  the  street  and  avenge 
the  wrong  that  has  been  done  your 
child. 

Madam,  one  moment!  Don^t  do  it. 
The  retaliation  you  contemplate  may  be 
justice  so  far  as  the  tormentor  across  the 
street  is  concerned,  but  it  is  a  rank  injus- 
tice to  your  own  boy.  I  want  to  tell  you 
on  the  authority  of  an  ex-boy  that  if  you 


As  THE  Twig  Is  Bent         35 

would  serve  your  son  best,  you  will  not 
Interfere. 

None  but  a  mother  knows  the  trials  and 
heartaches  of  the  fighting  period  in  a  boy's 
life;  and  none  but  a  father  realises  what 
an  important  part  that  period  plays  in  the 
shaping  of  the  boy's  career.  The  period 
runs  approximately  from  the  ages  of  five 
to  ten.  Prior  to  that  the  child  is  too  young 
to  indulge  in  it,  and  subsequently  he  is  too 
old  to  tell  about  it.  In  the  interim  these 
affairs  of  the  street  are  of  daily  occurrence 
and  are  to  the  mother  a  source  of  annoy- 
ance as  mysterious  as  they  are  harrowing. 

The  right  way  to  deal  with  this  prob- 
lem may  not  be  the  easiest  way  but  it  is 
the  simplest,  and  it  is  the  best  for  the  boy. 
It  is  to  let  him  alone.  It  is  to  teach  him 
from  the  very  beginning  that  outside  of  his 
own  dooryard  he  must  protect  himself  with 
his  own  hands.  Have  a  distinct  under- 
standing that  if  he  gets  himself  Into  a 


36  Bringing  up  the  Boy 

fight,  he  must  get  himself  out  of  it.  Tell 
him  that  by  helping  him  you  would  only 
make  more  trouble  for  him  because  he 
would  get  to  be  known  as  a  coward,  and 
all  the  boys  would  annoy  him  more  than 
before. 

I  went  further  than  this  with  my  boy. 
I  told  him  that  I  did  not  approve  of  fight- 
ing, but  that  if  he  were  forced  into  it,  I 
would  expect  him  to  hit  out  hard  and 
fast  and  defend  himself  blow  for  blow.  I 
provided  him  with  a  punching-bag  and  a 
set  of  boxing-gloves  and  I  showed  him 
how  to  use  them.  He  was  just  five  when 
I  established  this  rule  and  in  one  year  it 
proved  itself. 

At  six  we  started  him  off  to  school,  and 
a  few  days  later  he  came  home  one  after- 
noon with  a  discoloured  eye. 

But  there  was  no  tear  in  it.  He  threw 
his  books  in  a  corner  and  ran,  whistling, 
out  to  play.     At  dinner  that  evening  my 


As  THE  Twig  Is  Bent         37 

curiosity  got  the  better  of  me,  but  I  as- 
sumed Indifference. 

"  Where  did  you  get  the  eye,  old 
chap?  "  I  asked  casually. 

He  looked  up  sheepishly,  smiled  and 
pushed  his  cup  toward  me. 

"  Some  more  milk.  If  you  please, 
father,"  he  said.  The  fighting  problem 
had  been  solved  forever. 

The  mother  who  coddles  her  boy  shows 
him  a  double  unklndness.  She  not  only 
increases  his  boyhood  miseries,  through 
making  him  the  particular  target  of  other 
boys,  but  she  retards  the  development  of 
his  self-reliance  and  his  manliness. 

I  give  the  affaire  d'honneur  an  Impor- 
tant place  in  this  chapter  because  It  Is  one 
of  the  things  about  boys  that  mothers 
often  misunderstand  and  quite  generally 
undervalue. 

Of  course,  the  cardinal  precept  which 
should  form  the  foundation  of  the  char- 


38  Bringing  up  the  Boy 

acter  structure  is — Truth.  Combine  in 
him  manliness  and  truthfulness,  and  the 
other  essential  traits  of  good  character 
will  spring  from  these  two  like  shoots  from 
the  trunk  of  a  healthy  tree.  Truth-telling 
should  be  made  a  matter  of  habit  with 
the  boy.  Have  you  not  among  your  ac- 
quaintances men,  women  and  children  who 
are  habitual  prevaricators,  people  who 
make  misstatements  continuously,  abso- 
lutely without  purpose  and  without  malice? 
Lying  has  become  a  habit  with  them.  By 
the  same  token  truth-telling  can  be  and 
should  be  so  instilled  in  the  boy  as  to 
become  automatic.  He  should  never  be 
punished  for  a  falsehood  as  you  might 
punish  him  for  disobedience.  The  prob- 
lem of  disobedience,  which  I  discussed  in 
a  foregoing  chapter,  is  a  matter  of  psy- 
chology from  beginning  to  end.  Truth- 
telling  becomes  so  in  the  end  but  is  a  mat- 
ter of  morals  at  the  beginning.     It  can  be 


As  THE  Twig  Is  Bent         39 

formed  Into  a  fixed  habit  by  treating  it 
morally  and  by  keeping  everlastingly  at 
it  until  the  result  Is  achieved.  You  can- 
not beat  a  boy  into  hating  a  lie,  but  you 
can  shame  him  into  it. 

It  is  natural  for  a  very  young  boy  to  seek 
to  evade  responsibility  for  an  offence  by 
disclaiming  it.  The  first  time  he  does  this 
he  must  be  made  to  know  that,  however 
serious  the  offence  may  be,  it  is  as  noth- 
ing compared  to  the  lie  that  he  seeks  to 
cover.  I  did  not  go  so  far  as  to  promise 
my  boy  immunity  for  infractions  that  he 
frankly  confessed;  but  I  did  make  it  a 
rule  unto  myself  that  he  should  never  suf- 
fer through  confession,  and  I  did  invari- 
ably commend  him,  in  the  highest  terms, 
when  he  told  the  truth  under  conditions 
that  made  it  peculiarly  praiseworthy.  An 
example:  I  find  my  inkstand  tipped  over 
and  a  great  black  stain  upon  the  carpet. 
I  summon  the  boy  and  ask  him  sternly: 


40  Bringing  up  the  Boy 

"  Who  did  that?  "  My  manner  is  threat- 
ening. The  offence  is  grave.  He  is  thor- 
oughly frightened,  but  after  a  moment  he 
answers,  falteringly,  "  I  did.*'  Instantly 
my  attitude  changes  from  admonitive  to 
commendatory.  I  say  to  him:  "This  is 
an  awful  thing  that  you  have  done.  The 
carpet  is  spoiled.  The  stain  will  always 
be  there.  Nothing  can  remove  it.  But 
you  have  told  the  truth  and  that  is  the 
finest  thing  that  a  boy  can  do.  As  bad  as 
this  is,  I  would  rather  you  would  do  it  a 
hundred  times  than  tell  one  lie." 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  he  falsifies,  I 
grieve  before  him.  I  tell  him  that  noth- 
ing that  a  boy  can  do  is  as  bad  as  a  false- 
hood: that  a  lie  is  the  very  meanest  and 
lowest  thing  in  the  world.  I  tell  him  that 
I  fully  forgive  him  for  spilling  the  ink,  but 
it  is  almost  impossible  to  forgive  him  for 
that  lie.    I  leave  him  to  meditate  upon  it. 

I  never  allow  an  untruth  to  pass  with- 


As  THE  Twig  Is  Bent         41 

out  bringing  a  blush  of  shame  to  the  boy's 
cheek.  I  never  let  a  He  show  Itself  with- 
out holding  It  up  as  a  thing  to  be  despised. 
The  boy  first  gets  to  fear  a  falsehood, 
then  to  despise  It — and  finally  to  forget  it. 
And  by  forgetting  I  mean  that  It  passes 
beyond  the  pale  of  things  considerable. 
Truth  has  become  a  fixed  habit. 

Having  accomplished  this,  you  have 
given  your  boy  a  solid  foundation  upon 
which  to  rear  the  structure  of  good  char- 
acter. 

I  believe  In  sending  the  boy  to  the  church. 
Regardless  of  the  parents'  attitude  toward 
religion,  I  believe  it  Is  their  duty  to  give 
the  boy  the  benefit  of  a  church  environ- 
ment while  he  is  still  a  boy.  Irrespective 
of  sect  or  creed,  he  Is  sure  to  absorb  some 
good  In  an  atmosphere  of  divine  wor- 
ship. In  later  years  he  may  depart  from 
the  precepts  there  learned,  but  the  early 
teachings  and  associations  of  the  church 


42  Bringing  up  the  Boy 

or  the  Sunday  school  will  leave  their  in- 
fluence in  some  degree,  and  whether  it  is 
much  or  little,  it  will  never  be  for  any- 
thing but  good. 

I  give  my  boy  the  Bible  to  study  and  the 
Golden  Rule  to  live  by.  I  teach  him  to 
speak  or  think  deprecatingly  of  no  re- 
ligious faith,  and  show  him  that  all  are 
working  for  the  betterment  of  man. 

From  his  infancy  I  guard  him  from 
superstition  and  discourage  the  fear  of 
fancied  dangers.  I  do  not  believe  it  is 
necessary  for  a  boy,  at  any  age,  to  fear 
the  dark.  Mine  never  did.  Fear  of  the 
dark  is  born  of  suggestion,  and  he  has 
been  successfully  guarded  from  any  word 
that  would  couple  darkness  with  danger. 
Throughout  his  entire  childhood  he  never 
sensed  the  usual  terrors  of  the  unlighted 
room  and  the  darkened  passage.  I  would 
never  confirm  even  the  Santa  Claus  myth, 
though  I  did  not  dissuade  him  from  it, 


As  THE  Twig  Is  Bent         43 

because  I  well  remember  the  added  joy  it 
brought  to  me  when  I  was  a  boy.  When 
the  question  was  put  to  me  I  said:  *'  I  shall 
not  tell  you  because  the  mystery  of  Christ- 
mas adds  much  to  your  enjoyment  of  it. 
Believe  It  or  not,  as  you  choose;  I  have 
nothing  to  say."  With  this  pleasant  ex- 
ception he  has  never  asked  me  a  question 
that  I  have  not  answered  truthfully  and  as 
completely  as  I  could. 

I  live  close  to  my  boy,  and  by  so  doing 
I  find  his  level  and  see  his  narrowed  hori- 
zon as  he  sees  it.  When  he  was  only  six 
we  lived  together  In  the  woods,  slept  under 
the  same  blanket,  fished  and  sailed  and 
took  our  daily  swim  together.  Beginning 
at  that  early  age  we  have  sat  by  the  camp- 
fire  at  night  and  talked  of  the  stars  and 
the  moon  and  the  strange  noises  of  the 
wood.  Nowhere  can  you  get  as  close  to 
your  boy  as  you  can  out  under  the  sky  with 
only  Nature  about  you.     It  would  be  a 


44  Bringing  up  the  Boy 

splendid  thing  if  every  father  could  de- 
vote a  few  weeks  each  year  to  "  roughing 
it "  with  his  boy.  Besides  the  opportuni- 
ties it  offers  for  community  of  thought,  it 
brings  out  a  phase  of  the  boy's  character 
that  under  other  conditions  might  never 
come  to  the  surface.  I  recall  one  evening, 
as  the  boy  and  I  were  lolling  on  the  bank 
of  a  river,  how  he  astonished  me  by  ex- 
claiming: *'See!  What  a  beautiful  sun- 
set !  "  He  had  seen  the  sun  go  down  many 
times  over  the  housetops  of  the  town,  but 
it  needed  the  solitude  of  that  particular 
place  and  time  to  give  him  an  appreciation 
of  its  beauties.  Unexpectedly  there  was 
disclosed  to  me  an  aesthetic  side  of  his 
nature  that  I  had  never  known. 

These  are  opportunities  that  open  pecu- 
liarly to  the  father,  and  he  should  take 
advantage  of  them. 

I  believe  that  every  boy  should  be  en- 
couraged to  acquire  a  college  education 


As  THE  Twig  Is  Bent         45 

and  that  he  should  be  made  to  pay  for  it. 
We  hear  a  good  deal  of  talk  nowadays 
about  the  lack  of  real  advantage  that  the 
college  man  has  over  the  other  fellow. 
Thousands  of  college  men  fail  in  their 
struggles  with  the  work-a-day  world,  and 
often  you  find  a  degree  man  working  in  a 
subordinate  capacity  to  a  man  of  his  own 
age  who  missed  a  college  education.  It 
is  a  fact,  too,  that  the  honour  men  of  our 
colleges  rarely  distinguish  themselves  in 
their  chosen  professions.  But  none  of 
these  things  prove  anything,  because  the 
personal  equation  has  to  be  reckoned  in. 
I  believe  that  the  young  man  who  takes 
his  college  course  and  takes  it  seriously  is 
better  fitted  for  the  work  of  life  than  he 
would  otherwise  have  been.  The  un- 
schooled man  who  succeeds  would  have 
succeeded  with  more  ease  and  to  a  higher 
standard  had  he  been  schooled.  The  col- 
lege man  who  fails  would  have  failed  more 


46  Bringing  up  the  Boy 

miserably  had  he  been  untrained.  I  be- 
lieve that  failure  of  an  educated  man  is  in 
spite  of  his  education,  and  not  because 
of  it. 

If  you  want  to  make  sure  that  your  boy 
is  going  to  use  his  college  education  to 
the  best  advantage,  let  him  pay  his  way. 
The  failures  that  our  institutions  of  learn- 
ing turn  out  are  not  the  men  who  work 
their  way  through;  they  are  the  sons  of 
the  affluent,  the  little  brothers  of  the  rich. 
The  boy  who  drives  the  hay-rake  or  works 
behind  the  counter  of  his  father's  store  in 
vacation  time  is  rarely  found  among  the 
derelicts.  Let  the  boy  share  the  cost  with 
you,  and  you  need  have  no  fear  that  either 
the  time  or  money  spent  for  education 
will  go  for  naught. 

From  the  first  time  that  he  trots  over 
to  the  candy  store  with  his  penny,  the 
boy  should  be  trained  to  know  the  intrinsic 
value  of  money.    Encourage  him  in  mod- 


As  THE  Twig  Is  Bent         47 

erate  frugality,  not  because  the  accumula- 
tion of  money  is  a  desideratum,  but  be- 
cause profligacy  is  b^d  for  the  morals. 

Whether  it  is  the  mother  or  the  father 
who  takes  especial  charge  of  the  boy,  or 
both,  they  should  aim  steadfastly  to  have 
his  complete  confidence  always.  He 
should  be  made  to  feel  that  they  are  not 
only  dearer  to  him,  but  nearer  to  him 
than  any  one  else  in  the  world. 

If  a  condition  of  implicit  confidence  can 
be  established  between  you  and  the  boy, 
you  can  depend  upon  him  to  be  receptive 
of  the  good  which  you  seek  to  charge  him 
with. 

Then,  with  truth  as  his  anchor,  no  storm 
of  the  outer  world  can  sweep  him  beyond 
the  influence  of  home.  The  bulwark  of 
the  good  character  that  you  have  builded 
will  stand  throughout  his  lifetime. 


IV 

A  TALK  AT  CHRISTMAS  TIME 

On  a  Christmas  Eve  some  thirty-odd 
years  ago  a  very  small  boy,  guarded  on 
either  side  by  sisters  older  than  himself, 
knelt  at  the  low  sill  of  his  bedroom  win- 
dow and  looked  wonderingly  out  into  the 
night.  Above  was  the  sky,  studded  with 
twinkling  stars.  Below  was  a  soft,  silent 
blanket  of  white — the  unsullied  snow  of  a 
northern  winter.  Everything  was  very 
still. 

The  boy  looked  first  at  the  sky.  Being 
of  the  baby  age  when  the  children  of  the 
wise  are  put  to  bed  with  the  sun,  the  night 
sky  was  more  mystic  than  the  snow. 
There  were  so  many  of  those  stars,  and 
they  appeared  to  be  twinkling  at  him  with 
cheerful  friendliness.  One  attracted  him 
48 


A  Talk  at  Christmas  Time    49 

particularly.  It  did  not  twinkle  and  was 
not  so  merry  as  the  others,  but  it  was 
larger  and  shone  with  a  bright,  steady 
glow.  It  seemed  to  be  reaching  down 
toward  the  boy  as  though  it  would  speak 
to  him. 

He  recalled  the  story  that  had  been  told 
him  only  the  day  before,  the  story  of  the 
first  Christmas  and  of  three  wise  men 
who  had  been  guided  to  the  manger 
wherein  lay  the  infant  Christ;  and  the 
thought  came  to  him  that  this,  perhaps, 
was  the  star  that  led  them.  The  sugges- 
tion of  the  manger  brought  the  boy's  eyes 
downward  to  the  snow-topped  stable  oppo- 
site his  window;  and  from  the  stable  he 
turned  to  the  white-roofed  houses  with 
their  chimneys  still  smoking  from  the 
evening  fires.  He  wondered  if  Santa  Claus 
would  have  to  wait  till  all  the  fires  were 
out  before  he  could  make  his  rounds. 

How  white   everything  was  and  how 


50  Bringing  up  the  Boy 

still!  A  sense  of  delicious  mystery  crept 
over  him.  He  heard  the  sound  of  distant 
sleigh-bells.  They  drew  nearer  and  jingled 
more  tunefully.  One  of  his  guardians 
caught  his  hand  in  hers  and  held  up  a 
warning  finger.     They  listened. 

''Quick!  Maybe  it's  Santa  Claus!" 
whispered  the  guardians  In  unison;  and 
the  three  scampered  to  their  beds  and  dis- 
appeared beneath  the  blankets.  Five 
minutes  later  the  little  boy  was  fast 
asleep. 

The  little  boy  was  myself,  and  the  in- 
cident Is  the  first  Christmas  that  I  can  re- 
call. I  recount  it  because  it  seems  to 
illustrate  the  natural  coalescence  of  the 
mythical  Idea  with  the  historical  idea  of 
the  great  world  holiday. 

Too  often,  I  think,  the  real  significance 
of  our  holidays  is  lost  in  the  merriment  of 
celebrating  them.  Every  child  Is  entitled 
to  a  thorough  explanation  and  a  lasting  im- 


A  Talk  at  Christmas  Time    51 

presslon  of  the  Incident  which  Christmas 
commemorates.  In  shaping  the  Christmas 
idea  in  the  boy's  mind  we  should  begin  at 
the  beginning.  If  the  story  of  the  Star 
of  Bethlehem  is  told  in  the  right  way  and 
at  the  right  time,  it  may  be  depended  upon 
to  survive  the  myths  and  the  merry-making 
with  which  the  atmosphere  is  charged  dur- 
ing the  festal  period. 

And  this  need  not  militate  against  the 
development  of  the  Santa  Claus  side  of  the 
celebration,  for  the  one  amplifies  the 
other.  Unselfish  giving  is  the  keynote  to 
both,  and  the  child-mind  easily  compre- 
hends the  application  of  the  modern  cus- 
tom to  the  ancient  story. 

In  the  bringing  up  of  my  boy  I  have 
been  a  stickler  for  truth.  Absolute  con- 
fidence between  father  and  son,  mother 
and  child,  has  been  my  plea  and  my  prac- 
tice, always.  Yet,  while  not  going  out  of 
my  way  to  encourage  the  Santa   Claus 


52  Bringing  up  the  Boy 

myth,  I  have  most  cheerfully  tolerated  It. 
It  is  the  one  mystery  of  childhood  that  I 
do  not  explain,  and  my  reason  for  except- 
ing it  from  the  calendar  of  candour  is  that 
the  end  justifies  the  means. 

I  would  not  rob  the  boy  of  a  fiction 
that  has  not  one  harmful  possibility,  and 
that  brings  so  much  gladness  into  the 
home,  and  into  his  heart.  I  would  not 
deny  him  a  kind  of  pleasure  that  added  so 
much  to  the  joy  of  my  own  childhood. 
But,  and  paramount  to  every  other  con- 
sideration, the  great  unassailable  justifica- 
tion of  the  Santa  Claus  myth  is  the  re- 
markable lesson  it  teaches. 

With  reasonable  reservations  for  the 
unusual  I  may  say  that  never,  after  the 
Santa  Claus  age,  does  a  man  or  a  woman 
either  practise  or  experience  that  remark- 
able unselfishness  of  the  parents  who  con- 
ceal their  bounteousness  behind  a  fiction. 
After  childhood  we  continue  to  give  and 


A  Talk  at  Christmas  Time    53 

take.  We  give  to  our  brothers  and  sis- 
ters, to  our  parents  and  to  all  whom  we 
love.  It  is  our  pleasure  to  add  to  their 
happiness;  but  it  is  also  our  pleasure  to 
feel  that  they  know  it  is  we  who  have  so 
contributed  to  their  enjoyment. 

Not  so  in  Santa  Claus  land.  There, 
and  there  only,  is  found  the  absolute  sub- 
mergence of  self,  the  sincerely  impersonal 
benefaction.  As  a  child,  coming  down  to 
the  dazzling  Christmas  tree,  I  said: 
"  How  good  is  Santa  Claus !  "  But  in 
after  years  when  I  began  to  realise  that 
every  one  of  those  trees  of  joy  had  come 
from  my  good  father,  who  had  tramped 
out  into  the  woods  to  cut  them  and  had 
hauled  them  over  the  hills  for  miles,  some- 
times through  a  blinding  blizzard, — then 
I  said:  "  How  great  is  a  parentis  love!  " 

When  the  boy  arrives  at  the  age  of 
serious  reasoning,  say  six  or  seven,  and 
asks  me  point-blank  if  there  is  really  a 


54  Bringing  up  the  Boy 

Santa  Claus,  I  meet  the  question  fairly. 
I  simply  decline  to  answer  and  give  him 
my  reason  for  so  doing.  I  explain  to  him 
that  half  the  fun  of  the  holiday  lies  in  the 
mystery  surrounding  St.  Nicholas.  I  tell 
him,  good-humouredly  but  positively,  that 
he  must  solve  the  Santa  Claus  problem 
himself. 

By  taking  this  position  I  keep  square 
with  the  boy,  and  at  the  same  time  he  is 
not  disillusionised,  for  he  is  as  willing  to 
cling  to  the  romance  as  I  am  to  have  him 
— and  more  so. 

The  custom,  particularly  prevalent  in 
the  large  cities,  of  conducting  the  boy 
through  the  toy  department  of  the  stores 
when  the  big  holiday  stocks  are  on  dis- 
play, is  to  be  deplored.  The  lavish  exhi- 
bitions paraded  before  his  eyes  cannot  fail 
to  dull  his  appreciation  of  the  home  Christ- 
mas. 

In    arranging   my   boy's    Christmas    I 


A  Talk  at  Christmas  Time    55 

strive  for  simplicity.  It  was  Nerlssa,  I 
think,  In  the  "  Merchant  of  Venice,"  who 
said:  *'  They  are  as  sick  who  surfeit  with 
too  much,  as  they  that  starve  with  noth- 
ing." The  rich — sometimes — pity  the 
poor  at  Christmas. 

This  is  well,  for  pity  looses  a  purse- 
string  occasionally,  and  Heaven  knows 
there  are  enough  tight  ones !  But  the  fact 
Is,  that  the  children  of  the  moderately 
poor  often  get  more  real  joy  to  a  square 
inch  of  a  Christmas  morning  than  many  a 
little  brother  of  the  rich.  There  can  be 
no  great  pleasure  In  receiving  when  there 
has  been  no  genuine  longing.  Only  the 
child  who  has  known  want  can  fully  relish 
realisation. 

A  few  modest  gifts,  judiciously  selected, 
are  more  permanently  satisfying  than  a 
lavish  display,  Indiscriminately  gathered. 
I  always  try  to  supply  my  boy  with  one 
thing  that  he  most  desires,  or  with  a  fair 


S6         Bringing  up  the  Boy 

compromise  between  it  and  what  I  can 
afford  to  buy.  If  I  can  meet  his  anticipa- 
tions fully  in  this  one  gift  I  do  so;  but  it 
must  be  something  of  a  substantial  and 
permanent  nature.  After  which,  if  my 
purse  permits,  I  amplify  this  with  a  few 
things  of  lesser  cost  and  more  trivial  in 
character. 

And  here  let  me  record  a  protest 
against  that  modern  unnecessary,  the  per- 
fected toy.  By  the  perfected  toy  I  mean 
the  toy  that  is  not  a  plaything,  but  an  in- 
genious contrivance  so  perfected  mechan- 
ically that  it  leaves  nothing  for  the  child 
to  do.  I  protest  against  the  toy  that 
leaves  absolutely  nothing  to  either  the 
fancy  or  the  ingenuity  of  the  boy.  The 
imaginative  faculty  of  a  child  is  constantly 
reaching  out  for  something  upon  which  it 
may  feed  and  develop.  This  propensity 
is  stifled  by  the  perfected  toy.  The  rail- 
road outfit  that  goes  into  complete  opera- 


A  Talk  at  Christmas  Time    57 

tlon  at  the  turn  of  a  lever;  the  doll  that 
walks  and  talks  and  has  an  elaborate 
trousseau;  the  soldier  equipments  that  fit 
a  boy  out  In  military  style  from  head  to 
toe — these  and  all  like  them  are  praise- 
worthy examples  of  the  commercial  in- 
stinct of  the  toymakers;  but  they  do  not 
meet  the  requirements  of  the  child. 

And  if  the  juvenile  mind  were  capable 
of  self-analysis  It  would  reject  them.  I 
learned  this  first  from  a  little  girl  of  three 
years.  She  had  been  deluged  with  pres- 
ents that  Christmas  morning;  but  before 
an  hour  had  passed  she  had  looked-  them 
all  over,  and  we  found  her  curled  up  In 
an  armchair,  playing  with  a  clothes-pin 
and  an  empty  baking-powder  can  I  Hers 
was  the  happiness  found  only  in  the  land 
of  Make-Belleve. 

Instead  of  giving  my  boy  a  soldier  out- 
fit, I  would  give  him  a  pocket-knife — as- 
suming that  he  is  old  enough  to  wield  one. 


58  Bringing  up  the  Boy 

Having  a  new  knife,  he  is  ambitious  to  use 
it,  and  he  fashions  a  sword  out  of  a  stick 
of  pine.  The  sword  suggests  playing  sol- 
dier, and  he  proceeds  to  make  a  peaked 
hat  out  of  a  newspaper;  a  skate-strap  an- 
swers for  a  belt,  and  he  makes  a  pair  of 
epaulets  from  a  scrap  of  tin-foil.  In  this 
way  the  boy  is  duly  benefited;  in  creating 
these  things  his  ingenuity  is  drawn  upon, 
and,  in  supplying  things  that  he  cannot 
make,  his  imagination  is  exercised. 

One  can  hardly  begin  too  early  to  teach 
the  child  the  pleasure  of  giving.  A  few 
pennies  taken  by  him  from  his  own  little 
bank,  and  an  excursion  to  a  neighbouring 
store,  will  initiate  the  idea.  A  mere 
trinket  for  each  member  of  the  household 
will  serve  the  purpose  and  put  him  on  the 
right  track.  But  we  must  go  further  than 
the  family  circle  with  the  Christmas  idea. 
We  must  show  the  boy  that  while  charity 
begins  at  home,  it  does  not  end  there. 


A  Talk  at  Christmas  Time    59 

One  day  shortly  before  Christmas,  I 
took  the  boy  to  the  closet  where  his  dis- 
carded toys  were  kept,  and  I  said: 

"  There  are  millions  of  children  In  the 
world,  and  there  are  not  always  toys 
enough  to  go  around.  If  you  will  tell  me 
which  of  these  things  you  do  not  play  with 
any  more,  I  will  see  that  they  are  dis- 
tributed on  Christmas  Day  among  little 
boys  and  girls  who  otherwise  would  get 
nothing.'' 

He  looked  the  things  over  carefully, 
and  said  finally  that  there  was  nothing 
that  he  would  like  to  give  away.  I  did 
not  urge  the  matter ;  but  the  next  day  I  in- 
vited him  to  take  a  ride  with  me  on  the 
street-car.  Alighting  at  City  Hall  Park, 
we  walked  down  the  Bowery.  Arriving  at 
Pell  Street,  I  found  Chuck  Connors  sun- 
ning himself  on  the  corner. 

"  Chuck,"  I  said,  "  I  have  a  dollar  in 
my  pocket  that  isn't  busy,  and  I  want  you 


6o          Bringing  up  the  Boy 

to  take  me  to  some  one  who  needs  it  more 
than  you  or  me." 

So  off  we  trudged,  Chuck  and  I,  and  the 
boy  between.  A  few  blocks  farther  down 
we  turned  toward  the  river.  It  was  fa- 
miliar ground  to  Chuck  and  me — but  the 
boy^s  eyes  were  opened  to  a  new  world. 
He  saw  the  misery  of  the  slums.  He 
passed  a  boy  of  his  own  age,  barefooted — 
in  December — staggering  under  a  load  of 
scrap-wood  that  would  have  troubled  a 
man  to  bear.  He  saw  a  little  girl,  half 
clad,  shivering  behind  an  ash-can,  trying 
to  hide  herself  from  her  drunken  father, 
who  leered  at  the  waif  from  a  hallway 
across  the  street.  Pushing  on  into  the 
very  heart  of  that  pitiable  section,  through 
poverty,  want  and  wretchedness,  the  boy 
went  with  us  through  a  miserable  tene- 
ment, wherein  the  spectre  of  Starvation 
stalked  through  the  sordid  halls  and 
snarled  at  my  dollar  bill. 


A  Talk  at  Christmas  Time    6i 

On  the  car,  homeward  bound,  the  boy 
tugged  at  my  elbow. 

"  Father,"  he  said,  "  besides  what's  in 
the  closet,  they's  a  lot  of  other  things  I 
don't  play  with  any  more." 

Ever  since  then  we  have  had  an  annual 
house-cleaning  about  a  week  before  Christ- 
mas, and  the  Salvation  Army  wagon  car- 
ries away  a  goodly  load.  Indeed,  the 
event  has  come  to  be  regarded  as  quite  a 
festal  occasion. 

As  the  years  go  on  and  the  boy  begins 
to  leave  playland  behind,  I  would  not 
hurry  him  into  the  realism  of  the  grown- 
up's Yuletlde.  Let  the  charm  of  mystery, 
of  certainty,  of  anticipation,  linger  as  long 
as  it  will. 

Perhaps  last  year  you  thought  it  was  a 
bit  incongruous  when  you  found  yourself 
slipping  a  safety  razor  into  a  gaily-hued 
sock,  size  ten,  dangling  in  the  chimney- 
corner.     And  perhaps  you  have  decided 


62  Bringing  up  the  Boy 

that  he  is  too  big  for  that  sort  of  thing 
now,  and  that  you  will  let  it  go  by  default 
this  Christmas.  Maybe  you  are  about  to 
tell  him  so. 

My  friend,  defer  it. 

Stick  right  on  in  the  old  way  as  long  as 
you  can  get  the  boy  to  stick  with  you ;  for, 
once  you  have  severed  the  ties  of  the 
Christmas  of  his  childhood,  you  will  have 
cut  the  tinsel  thread  that  links  your  son 
to  the  only  fairyland  he  will  ever  know. 


V 

THE  DYNASTY  OF  THE  DIME  NOVEL 

My  neighbour  ran  In  at  the  basement  door 
as  was  his  wont.  Coming  lightly  up  the 
stairs  he  entered  the  library,  and  not  find- 
ing me  there,  but  hearing  a  voice  be- 
yond, he  walked  across  the  room  and 
looked  In  at  the  open  doorway  of  my 
den,  where  he  stood  for  a  moment,  un- 
observed. 

This  Is  what  he  saw: 

The  boy,  then  scarcely  nine,  stretched 
out  comfortably  on  a  sofa,  reading  aloud; 
I  reclining  In  an  easy-chair  with  my 
slippered  feet  In  another,  and  listen- 
ing intently;  a  bright  light  shining  over 
the  boy's  shoulder  and  flooding  the 
room. 

My  neighbour  paused  long  enough  to 
63 


64  Bringing  up  the  Boy 

hear  these  words  fall  from  the  reader's 
lips  in  boyish  monotone : 

"  The  crack  of  a  Winchester  sounded 
on  the  night  air  and  the  engineer  fell 
deadl" 

Then  he  interrupted. 

"  Well,  in  the  name  of  reason,'*  he 
said,  "what  are  you  folks  reading?" 

The  boy  and  I  looked  up.  I  took  the 
book  from  the  youngster's  hand  and 
passed  it  up  to  the  intruder. 

"  The  life  and  adventures  of  Jesse 
James,"  I  said. 

My  neighbour  took  the  book  gingerly, 
read  the  title  and  glanced  at  the  cover, 
upon  which  were  pictured  in  vivid  colours 
three  desperate-looking  gentlemen  in 
black  masks,  holding  up  a  train. 

"  And  you  are  reading  this — to- 
gether? "  he  asked. 

"  Yes,"  said  I;  *'  taking  turns  at  it,  he 
a  chapter  and  I  a  chapter." 


Dynasty  of  the  Dime  Novel     65 

My  neighbour  shrugged  his  shoulders 
and  returned  the  volume,  dusting  his 
fingers. 

"  Don't  you  think  he  would  get  to  this 
sort  of  stuff  soon  enough — without  you 
helping  him?  '' 

**He  arrived  there  to-day,"  I  said; 
"  and  Fm  there  with  him." 

There  you  have  It — the  great  difference 
of  viewpoint:  my  neighbour  looking  at  it 
from  where  he  stands  and  I  looking  at  it 
from  the  standpoint  of  my  boy.  My 
neighbour  convinced  that  I  was  starting 
my  beloved  son  on  the  highroad  to  a 
criminal  career;  I  calm  and  confident,  and 
cocksure  that  I  am  doing  what  is  best  for 
the  boy.  And  I  guess  if  we  were  to  take 
the  vote  of  Parenthood  on  the  issue,  my 
side  would  go  down  to  overwhelming  de- 
feat. 

Now,  my  father  says  that  up  to  the  time 
he  departed  from  the  parental  roof  there 


66  Bringing  up  the  Boy 

were  only  two  books  in  the  home  that  he 
was  permitted  to  read — the  Bible  and 
Foxe's  "  Martyrs."  From  his  tenth  to  his 
seventeenth  year  he  was  actually  starv- 
ing, he  said,  for  the  want  of  stories  of 
adventure.  Once,  when  he  was  fourteen, 
a  departing  visitor  left  a  copy  of  "  Scot- 
tish Chiefs."  This  he  seized  upon  and 
was  devouring  it  in  the  attic  when  dis- 
covery by  his  stern  pater  cut  him  off  in 
the  middle  of  a  most  exciting  battle.  The 
book  was  confiscated  and  he  was  soundly 
chastised.  "  And  do  you  know,"  adds  my 
father  ruefully,  "  it  was  three  years  before 
I  learned  how  that  fight  came  out!  " 

Perhaps  that's  why  he  gave  me  a  freer 
hand  in  my  selections  when  I  was  a  kid. 
He  did,  anyway.  All  that  he  required  was 
that  it  must  be  free  from  any  suggestion 
of  the  obscene  and  of  sacrilege.  Like 
most  boys  I  began  my  independent  read- 
ing with  *'  Grimm's  Fairy  Tales,"  "  Robin- 


Dynasty  of  the  Dime  Novel     67 

son  Crusoe,"  "  Swiss  Family  Robinson/' 
*'  Arabian  Nights  "  and  books  of  the  sort 
that  boys  usually  receive  as  gifts.  From 
these  I  jumped  to  the  nickel  and  dime 
variety.  There  were  one  or  two  good 
juvenile  magazines  coming  Into  the  home, 
but  they  were  not  sufficient.  I  waded 
through  all  the  "  Smart  Aleck  "  books,  In- 
cluding ''  Peck's  Bad  Boy."  I  took  the 
thrills  with  the  ten-cent  detective  heroes 
of  the  Old  Sleuth  and  Nick  Carter  type, 
and  revelled  In  the  more  or  less  historical 
exploits  of  David  Crockett,  Kit  Carson, 
Daniel  Boone  and  Buffalo  Bill. 

At  fourteen  I  had  run  the  gamut  of 
cheap  literature.  I  do  not  mean  that  I 
read  every  "  penny-dreadful "  in  exist- 
ence, for  the  list  Is  endless — there  Is  a  new 
one  every  day.  But  I  had  "  got  my  skin 
full  "  and  the  stuff  began  to  pall.  After 
reading  a  good  number  of  these  books, 
even  a  boy  feels  their  want  of  the  con- 


68  Bringing  up  the  Boy 

vincing  quality.    He  feels,  too,  their  same- 
ness and  their  unrealness. 

Then  I  approached  the  modern  style 
and  the  truer  type  of  boy  books,  stories  of 
the  Alger,  Oliver  Optic  and  G.  A.  Henty 
kind;  and  then  the  better  type  of  adven- 
ture stories,  such  as  *'  Treasure  Island '' 
and  "  King  Solomon's  Mines.''  Then  I 
drifted  into  Wilkie  Collins'  creations, 
reading  only  the  more  exciting  ones — 
"The  Moonstone"  and  "The  Dead 
Alive."  After  that  came  Edgar  Allan 
Poe  and  Charles  Reade;  and  before  I  was 
sixteen  I  had  got  into  Scott,  Thackeray 
and  Dickens.  And  here  I  anchored. 
Since  then,  of  course,  I  have  voyaged  far 
and  wide  in  all  directions,  but  Dickens 
is  my  snug  harbour,  and  will  be  to  the 
end.  No  boy  could  revel — shall  I  say 
wallow? — in  trashy  literature  more  than 
I  did;  but  search  as  I  will,  I  cannot  see 
where  it  left  a  trace  of  an  influence  on  my 


Dynasty  of  the  Dime  Novel     69 

conduct  or  my  character.  I  do  not  think 
it  was  owing  to  any  want  of  physical 
courage;  because  I  know  that  I  did  my 
share  of  fighting  and  took  as  many  beat- 
ings with  a  dry  eye  as  the  others;  a  little 
more  of  both,  in  fact,  than  it  would  be- 
come me  to  boast  about.  But  I  never 
robbed  a  bank  or  had  any  desire  to;  I 
never  craved  the  career  of  a  detective 
keenly  enough  to  try  my  hand  at  it,  and 
while  at  one  time  I  did  yearn  for  a  chance 
to  battle  single-handed  with  a  band  of 
Sioux  warriors,  the  desire  never  led  me 
into  more  dangerous  quarters  than  a  seat 
at  the  Wild  West  Show.  Was  I  different 
from  other  boys?  My  mother  says  cer- 
tainly I  was,  and  very  much  better.  God 
bless  her !  My  father  says  I  was  about 
like  the  rest.  My  teacher — he  is  a  promi- 
nent member  of  the  New  York  bar  now, 
and  I  put  the  question  to  him  squarely 
just  the  other  day— tells  me  frankly  that 


70  Bringing  up  the  Boy 

I  was  the  worst  boy  in  school.  The  three 
estimates,  averaged,  would  make  me  an 
average  boy,  and  I  think  my  experience  as 
to  the  effect  of  reading  material  was 
about  the  usual  experience  of  boys  in 
general. 

They  pass  through  the  age  of  blood- 
and-thunder  literature  just  as  they  have 
mumps,  measles  and  marbles,  and  are  none 
the  better  and  but  little  the  worse  for  hav- 
ing gone  through  it.  As  water  finds  its 
level,  so  the  temperament  eventually  finds 
its  affinity  in  reading  matter. 

"  There  is  no  book  so  bad,*'  said  the 
elder  Pliny,  "  but  that  some  good  might 
be  got  out  of  it." 

I  know  that  some  boys  who  read  cheap 
literature  go  to  the  bad.  But  I  have  never 
seen  it  established  that  the  reading  was 
responsible  for  the  waywardness.  I  do 
not  deny  that,  granting  the  existence  of  a 
tendency  toward  a  life  of  crime,  certain 


Dynasty  of  the  Dime  Novel     71 

types  of  stories  might  encourage  the  tend- 
ency. But  the  influence  of  this  stuff  is  so 
slight  that  the  avoidance  of  it  would  not 
prevent  the  downward  step. 

Many  a  boy,  fascinated  by  the  glamour 
of  the  circus,  has  run  away  with  one. 
Still,  this  does  not  make  the  circus  repre- 
hensible nor  would  I,  because  of  that  cir- 
cumstance, deny  my  boy  the  pleasure  of 
attending  it.  On  the  contrary,  I  go  with 
him  to  the  circus  and  sit  beside  him.  We 
munch  peanuts  joyously,  but  I  warn  him  to 
beware  of  the  red  lemonade  and  tell  him 
why  it  is  sometimes  unwholesome.  He 
sees  the  show  from  start  to  finish — under 
my  direction.  And  when  he  has  seen  it  I 
reveal  to  him  the  reverse  side  of  the  pic- 
ture— I  give  him  a  peep  behind  the  scenes. 
I  tell  him  of  the  hardships  and  privations 
of  a  showman's  life,  the  long  night  rides, 
the  harsh  discipline,  the  perils  and  dan- 
gers of  it. 


72  Bringing  up  the  Boy 

This  is  exactly  my  attitude  toward  the 
boy's  early  reading.  I  do  not  throw  wide 
open  the  doors  of  the  paper-cover  library 
and  push  him  into  it.  But  if  he  shows  a 
desire  to  explore  it,  I  go  with  him. 
Wherever  I  can  save  him  time  and  eye- 
strain by  a  friendly  suggestion,  I  am  there 
to  make  it.  When  I  find  him  reading 
**  Cut-Throat  Charley,  the  Terror  of  the 
Spanish  Main,"  I  do  not  pooh-pooh  the 
book  or  make  sport  of  the  boy.  I  do 
tell  him  that  the  best  pirate  story  ever 
written  is  Stevenson's  "  Treasure  Island  " 
and  tell  him  that  if  he  wants  a  shipwreck 
story  that  will  make  his  hair  stand  up  he 
ought  to  read  Poe's  "  Arthur  Gordon 
Pym  "  or  Reade's  "  Foul  Play."  Once  he 
has  read  either  of  these,  you  may  depend 
upon  it  that  *'  Cut-Throat  Charley  "  will 
never  ring  true. 

When  he  takes  up  Mr.  Nicholas  Carter 
I    suggest    "Jhe    Mystery   of   the    Rue 


Dynasty  of  the  Dime  Novel    73 

Morgue,"  "  Les  Miserables  ''  and  "  Sher- 
lock Holmes,"  and  other  detective  stories 
of  the  better  class. 

My  boy  had  been  learning  from  other 
boys  something  of  the  exploits  of  Jesse 
James  and  asked  me  if  I  would  get  the 
book.  I  agreed  to  it,  readily.  Somewhat 
to  my  surprise  I  found  that  since  my  time 
the  list  of  James  books  had  been  in- 
creased to  thirty-six.  Thirty-five  of  these 
were  "pot-boilers";  "Jesse  James' 
Nemesis,"  "  Jesse  James'  Revenge," 
"  Jesse  James'  Long  Chance,"  "  Jesse 
James'  Mistake,'*  and  so  on.  I  passed 
these  over,  of  course,  and  invested  fifteen 
cents  in  "  The  James  Boys,  Jesse  and 
Frank,"  which  was  the  book  I  had  read 
when  I  was  a  youngster.  It  was  a  plain 
record  of  the  men's  exploits,  compiled 
from  newspaper  clippings  of  that  period. 
I  explained  to  the  boy  that  the  others  were 
largely  imaginative — unreal.    We  read  the 


74  Bringing  up  the  Boy 

book  together.  Then  we  read  the  story 
of  Cole  Younger  and  his  brothers  and 
later  that  of  the  criminal  career  of  Harry 
Tracy,  the  infamous  outlaw  of  the  North- 
west. Together  we  enjoyed  the  romance, 
such  as  there  was,  of  their  exploits;  to- 
gether we  discussed  the  animal  courage 
and  moral  cowardice  of  their  careers;  and 
together  we  followed  them  to  the  punish- 
ment which  they  so  richly  deserved. 

Had  my  boy  evinced  a  desire  to  read 
the  remaining  thirty-five  James  books,  I 
would  not  have  restrained  him,  farther 
than  to  suggest  a  change.  It  so  happened 
that  when  he  had  finished  the  three  books 
mentioned  he  had  had  enough  of  these  dis- 
tinguished gentlemen  and  their  Ilk,  and  be- 
gan casting  about  in  other  directions. 

So  my  message  on  the  reading  subject  is, 
don't  think  that  the  boy's  craving  for  the 
nickel  library  is  an  Indication  of  depravity, 
or  that  indulgence  in  it  will  start  him  on 


Dynasty  of  the  Dime  Novel     75 

the  road  to  perdition.  The  appetite  for 
these  books  is  a  normal  one.  It  de- 
velops at  a  time  when  his  appreciation 
of  romance  is  in  full  bloom  but  while  big 
words,  subtle  phrasing  and  genuine  in- 
genuity are  not  yet  within  his  comprehen- 
sion. It  demands  quick  action  and  quick 
results,  stripped  of  the  artistic  setting  and 
higher  polish  which  are  demanded  by  the 
refinement  of  matured  intellect. 

Do  not  regard  this  kind  of  reading  as 
a  menace  to  the  boy's  morals,  but  as  a 
stepping-stone  to  something  better  and 
more  beneficial.  Do  not,  either  by  rule  or 
ridicule,  drive  the  boy  from  his  home  to 
seek  it,  but  stay  with  him  and  guide  him 
through  it.  Keep  him  well  supplied  with 
good  books  and  good  magazines  that  ap- 
proach, as  nearly  as  you  can  judge,  the 
requirement  of  his  fancy.  Watch  him, 
but  do  not  worry  him.  Have  the  better 
things  at  hand  and  accessible  and  point 


76  Bringing  up  the  Boy 

the  way  to  them.  Rest  assured  that  In 
due  time  Cut-Throat  Charley  will  have 
lost  his  charm,  and  a  hero  more  worthy 
of  emulation  will  stand  in  his  shoes. 


VI 

THE  SIN  OF  SEX  SECRECY 

Let  us  suppose  that  our  country  has  be- 
come involved  in  a  war.  At  the  edge  of 
your  town  a  battle  rages.  You  can  hear 
the  roar  of  cannon  and  clash  of  steel  as 
columns  of  men  fall  in  their  blood,  cut 
down  by  the  flashing  sabres  and  flying 
canister.  Re-enforcements  are  hurrying 
to  the  scene.  Up  the  street  comes  a  regi- 
ment of  soldiers  with  flags  waving,  drums 
beating  and  arms  gleaming  in  the  sunshine. 
Your  son,  your  boy,  standing  in  the  door- 
way, laughs  and  cheers  as  they  approach. 
The  band  strikes  up  a  lively  air.  The  boy 
beats  time  with  his  feet,  starts,  hesitates 
and  then,  with  a  wave  of  his  cap,  falls  in 
line  with  the  gay  procession  and  marches 
77 


78  Bringing  up  the  Boy 

joyously  toward  the  scene  of  death  and 
carnage. 

Madam,  at  such  a  moment  what  would 
you  do?  Would  you  sit  calmly  at  your 
window  and  see  him  go  innocently,  blindly 
on  to  the  danger  that  you  knew  lay  just  be- 
yond the  turn  of  the  road? 

Would  you  not  fly  to  his  side  and  draw 
him  back  and  hold  him  tight  In  your  arms? 
And  If  he  were  big  and  strong  and  In- 
sistent, though  still  your  boy,  would  you 
not  at  least  tell  him  that  war  is  not  all 
music  and  drum-beats  and  bright  uni- 
forms? Would  you  not  warn  him  of  its 
dangers,  of  its  horrors?  If  he  must  go 
and  you  could  not  hold  him,  would  you  let 
him  go  unwarned  of  its  realities — and  un- 
armed? 

Well,  there  Is  a  war  In  progress — in  our 
country,  In  your  town;  a  war  more  terrible, 
more  revolting  than  any  chronicled  in  his- 
tory.    The  youth  of  America  are  march- 


The  Sin  of  Sex  Secrecy        79 

ing  toward  the  battleground,  and  the 
splendid  column  Is  passing  your  window 
now,  to-day  and  every  day.  Perhaps  you 
do  not  see  the  conflict  yourself,  for  the 
battlefield  is  always  just  around  the 
corner. 

As  sure  as  you  have  a  son,  just  so  sure 
will  he  some  day  turn  that  corner.  Just  so 
sure  will  he  some  day  stand  on  your  door- 
step, and  feel  the  lure  of  the  passing 
show,  and  just  so  sure  will  he  some  time 
be  drawn  Into  the  conflict,  when  he  will 
have  to  fight  his  way  through  as  best  he 
can.  At  six  he  is  in  your  arms;  at  six- 
teen he  will  be  on  the  firing-line ;  at  twenty- 
six  the  ordeal  will  have  passed  and  the  bat- 
tle will  have  been  lost  or  won.  Can  you 
then  look  backward  into  the  past  and  feel 
that  you  had  warned  and  fortified  him? 

I  can.  Whatever  may  be  in  store  for 
my  boy,  he  goes  to  meet  it  with  more  than 
my  prayers — he  has,  also,  a  full  knowl- 


8o  Bringing  up  the  Boy 

edge  of  life's  mysteries.  He  shares  with 
me  a  thorough  understanding  of  the  evils 
that  may  beset  him.  If  my  affectionate 
admonitions  can  help  him,  he  has  them; 
if  my  mistakes  of  the  past  serve  as  danger 
signals  along  his  pathway,  he  knows  of 
them;  if  my  longer  experience  and  broader 
knowledge  of  the  world's  ways  can  save 
him,  he  shall  escape  the  snares  and  pit- 
falls that  await  the  heedless  step  of  the 
untaught  and  untold  young. 

Before  he  was  seven  I  had  told  him 
whence  we  come.  Scraps  of  conversation 
overheard  on  the  street  between  his  own 
playfellows  warned  me  that  the  time  had 
come  and  made  my  duty  clear.  I  saw  the 
pity  of  it!  My  boy,  whom  I  had  taught 
to  look  trustfully  to  me  for  the  truth  at 
all  times  and  about  all  things;  my  boy 
hearing  distorted  and  vulgarised  bits  of 
knowledge  that  should  have  come  to  him 
solemnly   and   sacredly  from  the   parent 


The  Sin  of  Sex  Secrecy        8i 

whom  he  had  learned  to  look  upon  as  the 
fountainhead ! 

This  is  what  I  told  him: 

"  God  made  everything,  as  you  know. 
He  made  the  sea  and  the  land,  the  sky 
and  the  stars  and  the  sun  and  the  moon. 
He  makes  the  trees  and  the  plants  and 
the  animals  and  the  boys  and  the  girls 
who  grow  to  be  men  and  women.  But 
when  I  say  God  makes  these  things  I  do 
not  mean  that  He  makes  them  with  tools, 
as  you  would  make  a  playhouse,  or  with 
His  hands,  as  you  would  make  a  snow-man. 
He  makes  all  of  these  things  by  a  great 
plan  which  He  has  laid  out  and  by  which 
all  things,  with  His  help,  spring  up  and 
grow,  over  and  over  again,  so  that  the 
world  may  go  on  just  as  it  Is  for  years 
and  years.  By  this  plan  all  living  things 
come  from  a  seed.  This  seed  is  within  all 
grown-up  plants  and  grown-up  animals. 
When  a  new  plant  is  needed,  a  seed  falls 


82  Bringing  up  the  Boy 

from  the  grown-up  plant  and  falls  into 
the  soil,  where  it  sprouts  and  becomes  a 
young  plant.  Every  kind  of  animal  is 
composed  of  two  sexes,  the  male  sex  and 
the  female  sex.  The  fathers  are  of  the 
male  sex;  the  mothers  of  the  female  sex. 
As  the  seed  of  plants  is  within  the  flower, 
so  the  seed  of  animals  is  within  the 
mother  animal.  When  a  new  animal  is 
needed  the  seed  within  the  mother  slowly 
grows  into  a  young  animal  like  the  father 
or  mother,  and  while  it  is  still  very  small 
it  comes  out  into  the  light  and  sunshine; 
and  that  is  what  we  mean  when  we  say  it  is 
born.  Men  and  women  are  animals. 
They  are  different  from  all  other  animals 
in  that  they  can  talk  and  think  and  are 
much  higher  and  better  in  every  way. 
But  the  seed  forms  within  the  mother  just 
as  it  does  within  the  plants  and  birds  and 
animals  of  all  kinds.  And  when  another 
child  is  needed  the  seed  begins  to  grow 


The  Sin  of  Sex  Secrecy        83 

and  takes  the  form  of  a  little  child  and 
after  awhile  it  comes  into  the  world  to  be 
dressed  and  fed  and  cared  for;  that  is 
what  we  mean  when  we  say  that  a  babe  has 
been  born.  That  is  how  you  came  into 
the  world  and  how  I  came  and  how  all 
of  us  came.  It  is  all  a  part  of  God's 
wonderful  plan  to  keep  the  world  grow- 
ing greater  and  better  and  more  beauti- 
ful. It  is  not  good  for  boys  to  talk  about 
these  beautiful  things  in  a  rough  way,  and 
I  hope  you  will  not  do  so.  I  tell  them  to 
you  because  I  want  you  to  know  the  truth. 
If  there  is  anything  you  do  not  under- 
stand, ask  me  and  I  will  explain  it.  What- 
ever you  may  hear,  no  matter  whether  it  is 
good  or  bad,  if  you  want  to  know  the 
truth  about  it  come  to  me  and  I  will  tell 
you." 

That  was  all.  Science  in  words  of  two 
syllables.  Science  is  truth,  and  truth  is 
what  your  boy  demands. 


84  Bringing  up  the  Boy 

My  boy  took  me  at  my  word.  He 
came  back  for  further  enlightenment 
more  than  once.  But  every  time  I  an- 
swered him  soberly,  freely  and  truthfully. 
And  when  he  knew  everything  he  was 
immune  to  that  contamination  which  mys- 
tery breeds.  And  what  is  more,  the 
parent  had  measured  up  to  the  child's 
ideal.  The  father  was  still  the  fountain- 
head;  and  no  boy  will  drink  from  the 
stagnant  pool  of  vulgarity  when  the  clear 
crystal  water  of  truth  is  close  at  hand. 

Revealing  the  science  of  propagation 
to  the  child-boy  is,  after  all,  only  the  first 
step  toward  unfolding  the  many  facts  of 
sex — facts  that  are  made  mysteries 
through  the  inexcusable  selfishness — or 
modesty,  if  you  prefer  to  call  it  that — of 
mothers  and  fathers.  If  sealing  the 
secrets  of  sex  is  an  injustice  to  the  boy  of 
six,  it  is  a  scarlet  sin  against  the  youth  of 


The  Sin  of  Sex  Secrecy        85 

sixteen.  At  six  he  Is  looking  at  life  curi- 
ously from  the  family  dooryard — within 
the  mother's  call;  but  at  sixteen  or  soon 
thereafter,  he  strides  out  Into  the  street, 
marches  down  the  highway  and  turns  the 
corner.  He  Is  on  the  firing-line.  Now 
comes  a  crisis  In  the  boy's  life  so  acute, 
so  grave  that  I  approach  the  subject  with 
trepidation.  My  poor  pen,  tempered  by 
that  delicacy  demanded  of  printed  words, 
seems  Incapable  of  the  task  before  me. 
And  I  approach  It  also  with  reverence 
because  I  look  upon  it  as  an  almost  divine 
privilege  to  be  permitted  to  discuss  with 
an  army  of  mothers  a  problem  which  I 
regard  as  the  great  tragedy  of  American 
youth. 

Nature  Is  good,  Nature  is  provident, 
but  above  all  Nature  is  self-preservative. 
Go  to  your  naturalists,  your  entomologists, 
and  they  will  all  tell  you  that  the  law  of 


86  Bringing  up  the  Boy 

perpetuation  is  first  and  foremost  among 
all  living  things.  Man  is  no  exception. 
Your  boy,  just  coming  into  his  maturity,  is 
in  this  respect  like  unto  all  other  growing 
things  that  God  has  made.  As  he  ripens 
toward  manhood  this  instinct  becomes 
more  manifest  within  him.  Vaguely,  per- 
haps, he  recognises  its  import,  but  in  the 
main  it  is  a  mystery.  In  a  general  way 
he  may  reason  out  its  purpose;  but  how 
can  he  know  its  humanised  limitations? 
How  can  he  know  that  the  refining 
process  of  civilisation  has  demanded  a 
check  upon  the  exercise  of  Nature's  func- 
tions? And — here  is  the  vital  issue — how 
shall  he  know  of  the  dread  penalties  Na- 
ture sometimes  exacts  when  these  re- 
straints are  violated?  Why  is  it  that  the 
loving  father  and  mother,  who  labour  with 
him  and  watch  over  him  and  shield  him 
through  childhood,  decline  to  raise  a  finger 
of  warning  against  the  grim  spectre   of 


The  Sin  of  Sex  Secrecy        87 

disease  that  stalks  behind  the  painted  faces 
of  the  underworld?  Must  It  be  written, 
to  the  shame  of  human  parenthood,  that 
the  very  horror  of  this  evil  stays  the 
warning  hand?  Or  does  the  mother  fall 
into  that  too  common  error  of  thinking 
that  this  evil  of  evils  is  open  to  every 
boy  but  her  own?  Then  listen  to  this, 
which  I  quote  from  an  eminent  authority: 

"  Take  a  group  of  one  hundred  young 
men — those  from  eighteen  to  twenty-five 
years  of  age — and  seventy-five  of  these 
will  be  found  to  be  suffering  either  from 
the  effects  of  venereal  diseases  or  still  in 
an  acute  stage  of  one  of  them." 

Mothers,  let  not  your  eyes  be  blinded 
to  a  condition  that  medical  records  have 
proven  to  be  a  fact.  It  may  be  your  boy 
and  it  may  be  mine. 

The  chances  of  its  being  mine  are  re- 


88  Bringing  up  the  Boy 

duced  to  the  minimum — because  my  boy 
will  know.  The  revelation,  as  I  make  it, 
is  so  simple  and  yet  so  complete,  that  it 
could  be  accomplished  with  equal  ease  by 
mother  or  father.  When  he  is  about  six- 
teen I  place  in  his  hand  a  book  that  tells 
him  all,  and  I  say  to  him :  "  My  boy,  when 
you  are  alone,  read  this.*  There  are 
truths  in  it  which  you  should  know." 
From  that  hour  the  "  great  social  peril  " 
must  fight  my  son  In  the  open.  He  knows 
all  that  science  can  teach — all  that  parents 
can  tell. 

I  am  going  to  say  now  what  I  should 
have  said  at  the  outset — that  the  father, 
though  he  may  leave  every  other  phase 
of  the  boy*s  development  to  the  mother, 
should  take  the  Initiative  in  sex  enllghten- 

*  There  are  several  good  books  designed  for  this 
purpose.  "Confidential  Chats  with  Boys,"  and 
••Plain  Facts  on  Sex  Hygiene,"  are  two  in  a  series 
on  this  subject  by  Wm,  Lee  Howard,  M.  D.,  and 
published  by  E.  J.Clode,  156  Fifth  Avenue,  New  York. 


The  Sin  of  Sex  Secrecy        89 

ment.  He  should  regard  it  as  his  pecu- 
liar right,  his  sacred  privilege,  to  point 
out  the  devious  paths  through  which  he 
himself  may  have  threaded  his  way  from 
youth  to  man's  estate.  There  are  no  bar- 
riers between  me  and  my  boy.  The  one- 
ness of  affection  and  the  sameness  of  sex 
easily  compass  the  disparity  in  years.  He 
grows  older  but  I  do  not,  for  I  am  waiting 
for  him.  In  fact  I  am  going  back  to  him — 
I  am  meeting  him  halfway.  Our  play  is 
,as  boy  with  boy.  Our  talks  are  as  man  to 
man. 

In  a  relationship  like  this  there  are  no 
"  sex  secrets."  There  is  no  ice  to  break, 
because  the  transmission  of  knowledge  is 
consistent,  gradual  and  unconscious.  But 
when  t?he  father  fails  in  his  duty  and  the 
mother  has  to  step  into  the  breach,  it  is 
different,  I  concede.  There  is  a  certain 
reserve  which  is  womanly,  and  perhaps 
not  unmotherly.    Still,  mother's  love  is  a 


90  Bringing  up  the  Boy 

poor  thing  if  it  cannot  break  down  that 
slender  wall  to  save  the  boy.  And 
mother's  love  is  not  a  poor  thing,  but  a 
great  power.  So  if  mothers  can  only  be 
made  to  see  why  it  must  be  done,  and  when 
and  how,  I  believe  they  will  do  it. 

This  is  an  appeal  not  to  parental  love 
only,  but  to  parental  reason.  It  is  made 
not  by  a  purist,  but  by  one  who  has  trav- 
elled the  road  by  which  all  boys  must  go, 
and  who  knows  its  every  crook  and  turn. 
It  is  a  plea  in  behalf  of  the  American  boy, 
who  asks  only  that  he  be  given  a  torch 
to  light  his  way. 


VII 

THE   WEED  AND  THE   WINECUP 

In  the  past  fiscal  year  there  were  smoked 
in  the  United  States  nearly  two  million 
cigarettes  more  than  in  any  previous  year 
of  the  nation's  history;  and  the  consump- 
tion of  distilled  spirits,  exclusive  of  wines 
and  beers,  broke  the  record  of  the  pre- 
ceding year  by  twenty-three  million  gal- 
lons. 

Now,  there  is  nothing  particularly  re- 
markable about  these  figures  except  as 
they  signify  that  we,  as  a  nation,  are 
smoking  and  drinking  considerably  more 
than  we  used  to,  which  in  turn  suggests 
the  question:  To  what  extent  are  our  boys 
responsible  for  the  increase?  I'm  sure  I 
don't  know,  and  I  can't  see  any  way  of 
finding  out.  But  I  do  know,  from  daily 
91 


92  Bringing  up  the  Boy 

observation,  that  the  tobacco  and  strong 
drink  habits  are  formed  in  boyhood  more 
commonly  than  there  is  any  need  of.  I 
do  know  that  a  great  many  young  men  ac- 
quire a  taste  for  cigarettes  and  whiskey 
while  yet  In  their  teens,  purely  through 
lack  of  the  proper  parental  influence  and 
instruction. 

To  me  this  seems  pitiable,  especially 
because  It  Is  so  obviously  unnecessary. 
The  parents'  duty  is  clear.  It  Is  amenable 
to  a  hard  and  fast  rule  to  which  there 
need  be  no  exception,  from  which  there 
should  be  no  deviation.  The  boy  should 
be  made  to  abstain  from  liquor  and  to- 
bacco until  he  is  twenty-one. 

How  can  you  keep  him  from  them? 
Facts,  logic,  reason.  By  these  means  and 
only  these,  can  you  get  the  boy  on  the 
right  track  and  be  sure  that  he  will  stick. 
Threats,  coercion,  exaggerations,  bribes 
or  pleadings  will  accomplish  nothing  de- 


The  Weed  and  the  Winecup    93 

pendable.  At  this  stage  In  his  career  you 
can  tell  him  what  to  do,  but  you  must  also 
tell  him  why. 

A  lady  once  said  to  me:  '*  You  believe 
that  the  parent  should  live  according  to 
the  principle  he  teaches  the  child.  Then, 
how  can  you  deny  your  son  tobacco,  with 
a  lighted  cigar  between  your  lips?  " 

The  answer  to  this  brings  us  to  the  nib 
of  the  tobacco  question.  The  child  Is  put 
to  bed  at  seven  o^clock,  although  the 
parents  may  not  retire  until  eleven.  The 
child  takes  milk  at  breakfast  and  the 
parents  may  have  coffee.  The  father  may 
devote  ten  hours  of  the  day  to  work,  but 
this  would  not  be  well  for  the  child. 
Many  things  that  the  man  may  do  with 
Impunity  are  not  good  for  the  growing 
boy. 

This  is  exactly  what  I  tell  my  boy,  and 
he  sees  the  logic  of  It:  While  a  boy  Is 
growing  he  should  take  nothing  Into  his 


94  Bringing  up  the  Boy 

system  that  is  not  nutritious  and  he  should 
particularly  abstain  from  anything  that 
may  retard  the  development  of  his  bodily 
organs,  even  in  the  slightest  degree. 
Every  pulsation  of  the  heart,  every  ex- 
pansion of  the  lung  cells,  every  function 
of  the  nerves  must  do  its  work  unimpeded 
while  the  frame  is  lengthening  and  broad- 
ening into  the  proportions  of  a  man. 
Once  the  frame  is  completely  developed 
the  organs  merely  have  to  renew  the  old 
tissues.  But  during  the  growing  period 
they  have  not  only  to  renew  the  old  but  to 
create  additional  flesh,  blood  and  bone  to 
meet  the  demands  of  the  increasing  bulk. 
There  are  two  chemicals  in  tobacco, 
pyridine  and  nicotine,  that  have  a  re- 
straining effect  upon  the  heart,  lungs  and 
nerves.  If  you  give  them  the  additional 
burden  of  carrying  off  these  two  poison- 
ous chemicals,  the  building  up  of  the  tis- 
sues is  sure  to  suffer.    If  you  do  not  feel 


The  Weed  and  the  Winecup     95 

bad  results  from  it  in  youth,  you  will  cer- 
tainly feel  them  in  later  years. 

Said  my  boy  to  me :  "I  know  a  chap 
who  smokes  cigarettes;  and  he  does  a 
hundred  yards  in  eleven  seconds." 
"  That's  too  bad,"  said  I,  *'  for  just  so 
sure  as  he  does  it  in  eleven  seconds  with 
the  cigarette  handicap,  he  could  do  it  in 
ten  and  a  half  without  it.  And  if  this  boy 
is  running  for  an  organised  athletic  de- 
partment like  that  of  a  college  or  an 
established  club,  the  training  rules  will 
forbid  him  the  use  of  tobacco  for  a  cer- 
tain period  before  the  day  of  the  contests. 
Ask  any  athletic  coach  about  tobacco  and 
he  will  tell  you  to  *  cut  it  out.'  Ask  any 
physician  about  it — even  one  who  is  him- 
self a  smoker — and  he  will  tell  you  that 
no  matter  how  strong  and  well  a  growing 
youth  who  smokes  may  be,  he  would  be  a 
good  degree  stronger  and  better  if  he  did 
not  use  tobacco.    You  would  like  to  arrive 


g6  Bringing  up  the  Boy 

at  manhood,  as  nearly  physically  perfect 
as  you  can,  wouldn't  you?  You  have  not 
as  yet  acquired  a  taste  for  tobacco,  have 
you?  Well,  then,  do  you  not  see  that  by 
abstaining  from  it  you  have  something  to 
gain  and  absolutely  nothing  to  lose?  Let 
tobacco  alone  until  you  are  twenty-one. 
I  might  better  say  twenty-five,  for  that  is 
the  accepted  age  of  maturity.  But  we  will 
put  it  at  twenty-one  and  perhaps  by  that 
time  you  will  add  a  few  years'  more  ab- 
stinence  of  your  own  volition." 

Mothers,  do  not  go  beyond  facts  in 
pleading  against  the  cigarette.  Do  not 
tell  your  boy  that  cigarettes  contain  opi- 
ates, because  they  do  not.  I  have  been 
through  dozens  of  cigarette  factories  and 
have  followed  the  process  of  manufacture 
from  the  raw  leaf  to  the  finished  article. 
The  better  grades  contain  absolutely  noth- 
ing but  pure  tobacco  of  the  mildest  kind. 
In  the  cheaper  grades  a  little  harmless 


The  Weed  and  the  Winecup     97 

glycerine  is  sometimes  used  to  relieve  the 
harsh  taste  of  the  tobacco.  No  harmful 
drugs  are  employed.  The  paper  wrap- 
pers are  purer  and  less  Irritating  than  the 
tobacco.  Cigarette  paper  is  the  purest 
paper  manufactured.  The  danger  of  the 
cigarette  Is,  first,  that  Its  cheapness  ap- 
peals to  the  boy  who  would  not  think  of 
buying  cigars;  and  second,  its  very  mild- 
ness encourages  the  young  man  to 
increase  his  smoking  until  he  drifts  Into 
excessiveness  without  knowing  it.  Con- 
sumed in  moderation,  it  is  the  least  harm- 
ful form  in  which  tobacco  is  used.  But 
cigarettes  or  cigars,  or  tobaccos  in  any 
shape  whatever,  are  not  good  for  the 
growing  boy. 

Mothers,  this  is  the  truth  about  tobacco, 
and  this  Is  what  you  should  tell  your  boy. 
Do  not  say  that  cigarette  smoking  leads  to 
the  penitentiary  or  the  madhouse,  because 
it  doesn't,  and  the  boy  knows  better.    The 


98  Bringing  up  the  Boy 

principal  of  my  boy's  school  walks  by  every 
day  with  a  cigar  in  his  mouth.  He  is  near 
seventy  and  a  good  citizen.  Do  not  say 
tobacco  creates  an  appetite  for  strong 
drink,  because  it  is  not  true,  and  the  boy 
will  not  believe  it.  Do  not  say  that  smok- 
ing wrecks  the  nervous  system,  because  in 
ninety-nine  cases  out  of  a  hundred  it  does 
nothing  of  the  sort,  and  the  boy,  who  is 
constantly  observing  the  man,  will  not  be 
convinced.  Tell  him  the  plain  truth  as 
I  have  written  it,  and  he  will  see  the  con- 
sistency of  your  reasoning. 

Strong  drink  is  no  relative  of  tobacco. 
The  only  similitude  between  the  subjects 
is  that  they  are  both  unnecessaries,  if  I 
may  coin  the  word,  to  the  boy's  career. 
I  have  little  to  say  about  strong  drink, 
because,  while  it  is  a  matter  of  vital  im- 
portance to  the  boy,  it  is  a  problem  which 
our  mothers  appear  to  have  pretty  well  in 


The  Weed  and  the  Winecup     99 

hand.  The  great  majority,  I  believe,  pro- 
ceed on  the  theory  that  alcohol  is  not 
good  for  anybody,  is  ruinous  to  many, 
and,  therefore,  should  be  kept  out  of  the 
home  and  away  from  the  boy.  There  are 
a  minority,  however,  who  reason  differ- 
ently— thuswise:  That  drink  is  not  harm- 
ful except  to  those  who  make  it  so  by 
excessive  use;  that  the  boy  who  is  care- 
fully guarded  against  it  In  the  home  will 
the  easier  fall  a  victim  to  It  when  he  gets 
beyond  the  home  influence  and  the  home 
restraint;  and,  per  contra,  that  the  boy 
who  is  permitted  to  become  familiar  with 
the  use  of  it  moderately  in  the  home,  will 
acquire  temperance  at  the  same  time  and 
be  the  better  fitted  to  combat  with  its  at- 
tending evils  when  he  eventually  goes  out 
into  the  world. 

To  the  majority  first  mentioned  I  have 
but  this  to  say:  Go  on;  you  are  doing  well. 

But  to   this  minority   I   want  to   say: 


loo        Bringing  up  the  Boy 

Stop !  For  the  love  of  the  God  who  made 
you,  stop!  You  are  on  the  wrong  track. 
And  I'll  tell  you  why. 

If  alcoholism  were  only  a  habit,  like  the 
use  of  tobacco,  there  might  be  a  thread  of 
practicability  in  your  line  of  reasoning. 
But  alcoholism  is  more  than  a  habit — it  is 
a  disease.  There  are  alcoholic  wards  in 
the  hospitals,  there  are  sanitariums  de- 
voted exclusively  to  persons  afflicted  with 
it,  there  are  physicians  who  specialise  in 
the  treatment  of  it.  Some  people  are 
immune  to  it;  others  are  not.  I  am,  it  so 
happens,  and  perhaps  you  are — but  is  your 
boy? 

Science  has  lately  ascertained  that  none 
are  born  consumptives.  Some  may  be  born 
with  a  tendency  for  the  disease,  or  they 
may  be  born  without  that  tendency  and 
subsequently  acquire  the  disease.  The 
same  is  true  of  alcohol. 

I  have  no  reason  to  believe  that  my  boy 


The  Weed  and  the  Winecup  ioi 

would  be  particularly  susceptible  to  tuber- 
culosis. Nevertheless,  I  do  not  propose 
to  expose  him  to  It.  His  window  Is  kept 
open  while  he  sleeps,  he  Is  encouraged  to 
spend  much  time  out  of  doors,  he  Is  given 
breathing  exercises  dally,  he  Is  taught  to 
take  precautions  against  Infection  when 
near  any  one  afflicted  with  the  disease. 

Nor  have  I  any  grounds  for  believing 
that  my  boy  has  Inherited  the  condition 
that  develops  alcoholism.  Looking  back 
Into  his  ancestry,  I  find  some  non-abstainers 
but  no  drunkards.  I,  his  father,  am  ab- 
solutely Immune  to  It.  Neither  a  total 
abstainer  nor,  In  my  youth,  even  a  tem- 
peratlst,  I  have  walked  arm  In  arm  with  It, 
but  found  nothing  to  attract  or  allure. 

But  does  this  justify  me  in  deliberately 
exposing  my  boy  to  It? 

I  do  not  know  how  he  is  equipped  for  it 
and  there  Is  no  way  of  ascertaining.  You 
can  take  your  boy  to  the  doctor  and  he 


I02        Bringing  up  the  Boy 

will  tell  you  whether  or  not  his  condition 
is  favourable  to  consumption.  But  al- 
coholism is  more  insidious.  Physicians 
can  diagnose  it  but  they  cannot  foretell  or 
forestall  it.  There  are  some  sanitariums 
for  alcoholism,  but  there  are  no  pre- 
ventoriums. 

"  But,"  I  am  told,  "  if  it  is  in  him  it  will 
come  out  sometime.  Might  it  not  better 
show  itself  under  the  watchful  eye  of  the 
parents,  rather  than  after  the  boy  has 
gone  out  from  the  home? '' 

If  it  is  in  the  boy,  then  every  year  that 
will  put  breadth  to  his  shoulders,  brawn 
on  his  arm,  pride  in  his  heart,  judgment 
into  his  head  and  force  into  his  character, 
makes  him  better  able  to  cope  with  the 
disease.  No,  no,  a  thousand  times  no! 
Do  not  have  on  your  soul  the  guilt  of  giv- 
ing your  boy  his  first  taste  of  wine. 

We  must  consider  latent  alcoholism  as 
a  possibility  in  bringing  up  our  boys.    Re- 


The  Weed  and  the  Winecup  103 

member,  alcoholism  is  not  a  habit  only, 
but  also  a  disease.  It  is  much  more  preva- 
lent than  smallpox,  but  for  alcoholism 
there  is  no  vaccine;  science  offers  no  pre- 
ventive serum.  It  is  your  sacred  duty, 
then,  to  prevent  the  contact,  to  keep  out 
the  contagion  until  your  son  has  his  full 
growth  and  strength,  and  it  is  your  duty 
to  tell  him  the  situation  as  I  have  outlined 
it,  so  that  he  may  know  the  real  danger 
of  rum. 

Then,  if  the  tendency  is  not  in  him, 
nothing  has  been  lost,  and  if  it  is  in  him, 
you  have  brought  him  to  man's  estate 
well  equipped  to  give  the  evil  a  fair  fight 
for  supremacy. 


VIII 

OUT  INTO  THE  WORLD 

A  YOUNG  man  of  my  acquaintance,  who 
had  just  finished  his  schooling,  came  to 
his  father  one  morning,  flushed  with 
pride,  and  holding  an  open  letter  In  his 
hand. 

*'  Father,"  he  said,  *'  IVe  got  a  situa- 
tion, and  the  man  says  I  may  start  to  work 
In  the  morning." 

The  father  took  the  letter  and  read  It. 

"  Do  you  know  all  about  this  man?" 
he  asked. 

"  Do  I  know  him?  Why,  no;  I  don't 
know  him  at  all.  But  he  knows  all 
about  me.  He  looked  up  all  my  refer- 
ences." 

"  Of  course  he  did,"  replied  the  father, 
putting  the  letter  into  his  pocket;  "and 
104 


Out  into  the  World        105 

before  you  go  to  work  for  him  I'm  going 
to  look  up  his/' 

It  was  a  homely,  up-state  father  who 
said  that,  but  he  was  a  wise  and  a  good 
man  and  I  revere  him.  He  was  a  father 
who  knew  the  boy  from  the  skin  in.  He 
knew  that  the  boy's  first  employer  is,  in 
the  boy's  eyes,  the  greatest  man  in  the 
world.  He  perceived  that  his  son,  who 
for  twenty  years  had  looked  upon  him, 
the  father,  as  the  man  of  men,  was  about 
to  have  set  before  him  a  new  pattern,  a 
new  ideal.  And  out  of  his  heart  came  the 
question : 

"  What  Is  this  man  like?  '* 

It  is  a  fine  thing  to  know  that  you  have 
brought  your  boy  through  that  plastic 
period  between  his  cradle-hood  and  his 
majority,  and  to  know  when  he  comes  of 
age  that  he  is  clean  and  straight  and  true. 
It  must  be  gratifying  Indeed,  when  the  last 
text-book  is  closed  and  laid  away,  to  see 


io6        Bringing  up  the  Boy 

him  start  into  the  world,  a  man  grown, 
with  keen  aspirations  and  high  ideals, 
ready  and  eager  to  grapple  with  the 
world  on  his  own  account,  and  capable 
of  taking  care  of  himself  with  his  own 
hands. 

If  you  have  brought  him  through  safely 
to  this  momentous  hour,  you  have  done 
much.  But  is  your  task  quite  ended? 
Does  your  responsibility  stop  here? 

That  up-state  father  whom  I  have  just 
referred  to  thought  that  it  did  not;  and  I 
agree  with  him.  I  believe  that  the  father 
and  mother  yet  have  that  one  last  touch 
to  give  to  the  character  they  have  helped 
to  form.  I  believe  it  is  their  duty  to  see, 
not  that  the  boy  has  a  good  situation,  but 
that  he  starts  under  a  good  man. 

Naturally,  the  employer,  in  most  cases, 
is  a  man  who  has  met  with  some  success  in 
his  business  or  his  profession.  He  sits 
apart   from  his  subordinates.     However 


Out  into  the  World        107 

much  they  may  use  their  Ingenuity,  It  Is  he 
who  shapes  the  policy  of  the  business  and 
dominates  the  concern.  Every  one  about 
him  defers  to  him.  Everything  that  is 
done  Is  subject  to  his  approval.  He  Is,  in 
fine,  the  head  and  front  of  the  entire 
establishment.  There  are  clerks  and 
salesmen  and  accountants  and  confidential 
advisers  in  the  place,  some  with  long  ex- 
perience and  grey  hairs,  but  none  are  as 
great  as  he,  and  all  look  up  to  the  place  he 
occupies  as  a  position  worthy  of  aspiring 
to. 

The  youth  enters  the  employ  of  this 
man  fresh  from  school  or  college.  Here 
he  gets  his  first  Insight  of  the  career  he 
intends  to  follow.  If  the  employer  Is  a 
good  man,  a  man  of  high  principles,  all  is 
well.  But  if  he  Is  a  man  of  sharp  prac- 
tices, the  boy  is  In  danger.  Having  no 
other  standard  of  comparison  in  business 
life,  he  may  fall  into  the  error  of  accept- 


io8        Bringing  up  the  Boy 

ing  his  employer  as  a  true  type  of  the 
successful  man.  He  has  come  to  this 
place  in  a  receptive  frame  of  mind.  Here 
the  foundation  of  his  chosen  career  is  to 
be  laid.  Is  it  not  probable  that  he  will 
absorb  something  of  the  morals  of  his 
superior,  even  though  they  may  not  agree 
with  the  higher  ideals  raised  in  the  home? 
When  the  boy  first  strikes  out  he  is,  after 
all,  only  a  fledgling.  The  family  nest  has 
been  feathered  with  love  and  care  and 
kindness  and  protecting  influences.  You 
have  told  him  of  the  outside  world  and 
you  have  tried  to  give  him  a  clear  vision. 
But  there  are  some  things  about  flying 
alone  that  only  experience  can  teach. 
You  cannot  always  extend  the  home  at- 
mosphere beyond  the  home,  but  you  can 
do  something  akin  to  it.  You  can  make 
it  your  business  to  see  that  his  first  glimpse 
into  the  new  life  reveals  nothing  contrary 
to  the  morals  of  the  home. 


Out  into  the  World        109 

You  can  see  to  it  that  his  first  employer 
is  the  kind  of  man  you  would  be  satisfied 
to  have  your  son  emulate. 

In  the  selection  of  the  boy's  calling  it  is 
admitted,  of  course,  that  the  boy  himself 
is,  in  a  large  measure,  the  best  judge. 
The  vocation  that  he  inclines  to  most 
strongly  is  likely  to  be  the  one  for  which 
he  is  best  fitted.  I  think,  however,  that 
this  rule  is  made  too  elastic  at  times. 

A  young  man  of  my  acquaintance 
thought  that  the  stage  was  his  calling. 
The  father,  telling  me  of  it  in  confidence, 
said  that  in  his,  the  father's  opinion,  the 
boy  was  best  suited  to  the  law,  but  added 
that  he  would  say  nothing,  believing  it  to 
be  a  matter  for  the  young  man  to  decide 
alone.  The  young  man  had  an  exception- 
ally good  memory,  a  fine  speaking  voice 
and  the  gift  of  oratory  in  a  remarkable 
degree.    He  was  much  of  a  student,  pre- 


no        Bringing  up  the  Boy 

possessing  in  appearance  and  magnetic  in 
personality. 

That  was  ten  years  ago  and  the  young 
man  has  never  risen  above  mediocrity — 
and  he  never  will.  He  lacked  one  essen- 
tial to  the  drama — imagination.  The 
truth  is  that  he  should  have  gone  into  the 
law.  He  saw  the  mistake  in  course  of 
time,  and  told  me  so,  but  it  was  too  late. 
Time  had  elapsed  and  he  could  not  turn 
back. 

The  boy  is  not  always  a  good  self- 
analyst.  He  is  too  prone  to  measure  his 
talents  perfunctorily.  It  does  not  follow 
that  your  son's  calling  is  art  because  he 
can  chalk  a  caricature  on  the  wall;  that  he 
should  be  a  poet  because  he  can  dash  off 
a  sentiment  in  rhyme;  that  he  is  suited  to 
the  clergy  because  he  is  of  a  pious  turn 
of  mind.  It  does  not  always  follow  that 
the  thing  he  does  the  most  easily  he  can  do 
the  best.    This  is  the  mistake  that  parents 


Out  into  the  World        hi 

must  guard  against  when  the  time  comes 
for  choosing  a  profession  for  the  boy. 

They  have  studied  the  boy  from  Infancy, 
while  he  has  studied  himself  but  little, 
and  that  with  an  Immatured  mind.  Is  it 
unlikely,  then,  that  the  parents  often 
know  his  latent  capabilities  better  than 
he  himself  knows  them?  It  goes  without 
saying  that  the  son  shall  not  be  driven 
by  parental  authority  into  a  profession 
that  is  distasteful  to  him;  but  I  think  in 
most  cases  the  parents  can  aid  the  boy  in 
finding  the  true  thread  of  his  bent.  With 
no  attempt  at  coercion  they  can  help  him 
to  accurately  analyse  those  natural  lean- 
ings which,  in  the  embryo,  are  many  times 
conflicting  and  misleading.  It  appears  to 
me  that  the  counsel  of  the  parents  is  needed 
at  this  time  no  less  than  at  any  other 
period  in  the  boy's  life. 

Having  seen  the  boy  well  reared  and 


112        Bringing  up  the  Boy 

started  in  the  career  for  which  he  is  best 
equipped,  and  under  the  direction  of  a 
superior  whose  influence  will  be  uplifting, 
I  think  the  parents  may  rest  in  that  peace 
and  tranquillity  of  mind  that  comes  with 
the  consciousness  of  a  duty  well  done. 
They  may  now  sit  quietly  by  and  watch 
while  the  boy  works. 

I  would  caution  them  against  expecting 
too  much  of  him.  Of  the  million-and-a- 
half  of  American  boys  born  every  year, 
all  cannot  be  famous — all  cannot  be  rich. 
Only  a  few  can  be  President  of  the  United 
States.  But  all  can  be  good  citizens,  and 
that  is  the  kind  of  material  that  the  coun- 
try needs.  We  have  plenty  of  great  men, 
and  too  many  very  rich  men.  A  great 
man  is  merely  a  good  man  picked  hap- 
hazard from  thousands  of  others  just  as 
good — picked  by  Opportunity  whenever 
the  occasion  demands.  A  rich  man  is  one 
who    has    more    money    than    he    needs. 


Out  into  the  World         113 

Either  of  these,  beyond  a  certain  stage  of 
self-progress,  is  a  child  of  chance. 

What  you  have  a  right  to  expect  from 
your  son,  if  you  have  trained  him  con- 
scientiously, is  success.  I  do  not  mean  the 
success  that  is  measured  by  the  dollar 
sign,  or  by  the  size  of  the  type  in  which 
the  newspapers  print  his  name. 

The  successful  man.  In  the  true  sense  of 
the  word,  Is  the  law-abiding  citizen  who 
gives  unto  the  world  enough  of  his  brain 
and  brawn  to  pay  the  way  of  himself  and 
his  family  through  it. 

I  believe  there  is  the  making  of  such 
a  man  In  every  healthy  boy  that  is  born 
into  the  civilised  world.  I  believe  that 
every  healthy  boy  is  brought  Into  the  world 
a  good  boy.  If  one  of  these  develops 
into  a  bad  boy  It  Is  because  he  Is  made  to; 
not  affirmatively,  but  negatively — through 
the  want  of  proper  training.  All  the  boy 
needs  is  to  be  treated  as  a  boy.    He  is  not 


114        Bringing  up  the  Boy 

a  god,  to  be  worshipped,  or  a  girl,  to  be 
coddled,  or  a  dog,  to  be  driven.  The  boy 
that  I  know  is  a  sturdy  little  human  being, 
distinctly  masculine  in  gender,  with  a  de- 
sire to  be  doing  something  and  a  want  of 
direction;  in  fine,  an  embryotic  man. 

Give  him  the  light,  tell  him  the  truth, 
show  him  the  way.  Do  this  consistently, 
conscientiously,  and  he  will  measure  up  to 
the  highest  standard  of  good  citizenship. 

More  than  this  I  do  not  ask  of  my  boy. 


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